Clinic Manager Admits to $131 Million Medicare Fraud for Controlled Substances

A Michigan clinic manager pleaded guilty to a scheme to unnecessarily prescribe controlled substances that lost Medicare $131 million, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions called the plea the latest victory in Justice Department efforts against those exploiting the opioid addiction epidemic.

Yasser Mozeb, who managed the Detroit-based Tri-County Network, pleaded guilty before Judge Denise Page Hood of the Eastern District of Michigan, admitting to conspiring with the Tri-County Network’s owner Mashiyat Rashid to pay bribes and kickbacks to patient recruiters and Medicare beneficiaries to steer patients toward the network.

The two also participated with co-conspirators to prescribe controlled substances to patients for whom they were not a medical necessity, including hydrocodone, oxymorphone and oxycodone. Many of the Medicare beneficiaries were addicted to narcotics. The co-conspirators also told doctors to have Medicare patients take medically unnecessary spinal facet joint injections to obtain prescriptions.