GRIMY TIMES: Pharmacy marketer Vinson Woodlee, owner of Med Left LLC, has been hit with a federal indictment for allegedly orchestrating a $60 million kickback scheme.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas, Woodlee, 68, is charged with conspiracy and soliciting healthcare kickbacks through his role as a marketer for NextHealth, a pharmacy and lab services firm.
The indictment claims that NextHealth identified high-profit prescriptions like pain creams and supplements, then paid doctors to prescribe them through their pharmacies. Woodlee is accused of taking 50% of the profits from each prescription and refill he brokered, funneling some to physicians and sub-marketers while keeping the rest.
From 2012 to 2018, Woodlee collected over $60 million in kickbacks, including $16.8 million to ‘his’ physicians and $30.6 million to sub-marketers, who may have further passed funds to other doctors. During this period, NextHealth fraudulently billed insurers over $700 million.
Woodlee is also accused of attempting to conceal the kickbacks by disguising them as his wages or those of family members he ‘hired’ at NextHealth. He later increased his commission on non-federal insurance prescriptions from 50% to 58%, effectively compensating himself for violating federal Anti-Kickback Statute.
An indictment is merely an allegation, and Woodlee is presumed innocent until proven guilty. If convicted, he could face up to 35 years in federal prison. His co-conspirators at NextHealth, Andrew Hillman and Semyon Narasov, have already pleaded guilty to money laundering conspiracy and were sentenced to 66 and 76 months respectively.
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Key Facts
- State: Texas
- Agency: DOJ USAO
- Category: Drug Trafficking|Fraud & Financial Crimes|Public Corruption|White Collar Crime
- Source: Official Source ↗
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