The federal government ramped up its war on health care fraud Wednesday, indicting another 43 people — doctors, pharmacists and home health care workers — on charges of running a massive prescription drug scheme.
According to the newly unsealed indictment, five doctors alone prescribed more than 500,000 doses of OxyContin, which had a street value of $10 million. They also prescribed 2 million doses of Vicodin, more than 2 million does of Xanax and more than 1,000 liters of cough syrup over a 21-month period, the indictment said.
Among the defendants charged is Deepak Kumar of Washington Township, who is accused of unlawfully pushing pain pills through his home health care company, Palace Home Health Care in Southfield.
According to the indictment, Kumar held “patient parties” and hired patient recruiters “in order to obtain new beneficiaries for the scheme.”
