A federal jury convicted a Tennessee physician and his wife for unlawfully distributing opioids, providing unnecessary services, and defrauding insurers from their now-closed Alabama clinics.
According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Mark Murphy, 65, and his wife, Jennifer Murphy, 65, both of Lewisburg, Tenn., owned and operated North Alabama Pain Services (NAPS), which closed its Decatur and Madison offices in early 2017. Over the approximately five year period leading up to the clinic closing its Alabama locations, Murphy, and his wife, who was the office manager, caused over $50 million in fraudulent or unnecessary medical services to be charged to Medicare, TRICARE, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama and others.
Evidence at trial showed that NAPS provided pre-signed prescriptions to thousands of patients a month, including prescriptions written outside the usual course of professional practice without a legitimate medical purpose. The Murphys also solicited and received unlawful payments for referring fraudulent or unnecessary services to patients. Jennifer Murphy was also convicted of tax-related charges for underreporting clinic income.
Both defendants were convicted of conspiracy to unlawfully distribute controlled substances and conspiracy to commit health care fraud, along with various substantive counts related to the same. They were also convicted of conspiring to defraud the United States and receiving kickbacks.
The Murphys face a maximum of 20 years in prison for the drug charges and a maximum of 10 years in prison for the health care fraud charges. Both defendants face a maximum of five years in prison for charges stemming from violations of the Anti-Kickback Statute, and Jennifer Murphy faces up to three years in prison for the tax charges. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors. Sentencing is scheduled for June 30.
The practice of doctors over-prescribing or illegally trafficking in prescription drugs has dramatically increased over the passing decades, encouraging and even causing the opioid epidemic in the U.S.
In 2017, a Mobile doctor, Xiulu Ruan, was sentenced to 21 years in prison for drug distribution and money laundering. Ruan was charged for crimes engaged in at Physicians Pain Specialists of Alabama, which has since been closed down.
From 1999 to 2018, nearly 450,000 people in the United States died from overdoses involving prescription opioids, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 2020.
According to a study done by Injury Epidemiology (IE), there have been 372 physicians charged with pharmaceutical-related crimes since 1995. Before 1995, there had not been one physician charged with pharmaceutical-related crimes. The most common charge against physicians was drug trafficking, followed by fraud and manslaughter.
Physicians and clinics responsible for providing these illegal prescriptions are often called “pill mills." Pill mills can typically be characterized by writing prescriptions without first doing an evaluation, overprescribing pain medication, exclusively taking cash, allowing patients to choose their medication, and using pain pills exclusively to treat pain.
The case of the Murphys was investigated by the FBI, DEA, IRS, and others. Assistant Chief Jillian Willis and Trial Attorney Emily Gurskis of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney J.B. Ward of the Northern District of Alabama are prosecuting the case.
The Fraud Section leads the Appalachian Regional Prescription Opioid (ARPO) Strike Force. Since its inception in October 2018, the ARPO Strike Force, which operates in 10 districts, has charged more than 90 defendants collectively responsible for distributing more than 105 million pills. The ARPO Strike Force is part of the Health Care Fraud Strike Force Program, which since March 2007 has charged more than 4,200 defendants who collectively have billed the Medicare program for more than $19 billion. In addition, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, working in conjunction with the Office of the Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services, are taking steps to hold providers accountable for their involvement in health care fraud schemes.
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