Andrew E. Fisher, $4.8 Million Tricare Fraud & Money Laundering, Florida 2020

A federal jury in Pensacola has convicted Andrew E. Fisher, 34, of Gulf Breeze, of conspiring to use his pharmacy to defraud more than $4.8 million from TRICARE, a federal health care program for uniformed service members, retirees, and their families, and then laundering the money generated by the fraud.

The guilty verdict, reached by the jury on Monday, was announced today by Lawrence Keefe, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Florida.

Fisher, the owner and operator of Physician Specialty Pharmacy (PSP) in Pensacola, was convicted of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Evidence at trial established that between October 2014 and December 2015, Fisher conspired with sales representative Michael Scott Burton and others to defraud TRICARE out of more than $4.8 million in fraudulent claims for prescription compounded pain cream, scar cream, and wellness vitamins.

Fisher agreed to fill prescriptions at PSP from a doctor’s office in Georgia whose beneficiary information was provided by Burton and individuals working for him, knowing that these particular beneficiaries had never seen that doctor and the prescriptions were not based on a legitimate doctor-patient relationship.

In exchange for recruiting TRICARE beneficiaries to receive the prescriptions, Burton received approximately 50% of the amount paid to Fisher in insurance reimbursements.

Those commission payments were laundered in the form of large wire transfers and direct deposits into Burton’s bank account in Georgia.

Fisher’s sentencing has been set for May 22, 2020, at 10:00 a.m.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndfl/pr/pensacola-compounding-pharmacy-owner-convicted-48-million-tricare-fraud-and-money