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Greensboro Doctor Sentenced for Health Care Fraud and Money Laundering
A 72-year-old doctor from Mt. Airy, North Carolina, Wendell Lewis Randall, was sentenced to 30 months of imprisonment and ordered to pay restitution totaling $2,049,747.47 after pleading guilty to one count of health care fraud and one count of money laundering.
In a shocking case of abuse of power, Wendell Lewis Randall, the sole physician and owner of the National Institute of Toxicology, PLLC (NIT), prescribed opioids or other controlled substances to his patients without regard to whether such prescriptions were medically indicated. He then required his patients to submit to definitive urine drug tests (UDT) on every office visit without regard to the medical necessity of such tests. NIT had an in-house laboratory to run the UDT.
From August 2018 through December 2021, Randall, through NIT, billed Medicare and North Carolina Medicaid for the UDT that reimbursed at the highest pay for nearly all of his patients on Medicare and Medicaid. Randall obtained $753,446.70 from Medicare and $1,296,300.77 from Medicaid for these fraudulently billed UDT.
“Randall abused his position as a medical provider to gain excessive profit from government-funded insurance programs,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Galyon. “This Office will continue to seek out fraud and abuse perpetrated on our health insurance system and hold those responsible accountable.”
The case was investigated by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Charlotte Tactical Diversion Squad and the Greensboro Diversion Group; the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Inspector General; the Internal Revenue Service; the North Carolina Attorney General’s Office, Medicaid Investigations Division; and the North Carolina Department of Insurance. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Rebecca Mayer.
Randall used the fraudulently obtained proceeds to make several large purchases, including a building on property near his home in 2019 for a total of $97,000. This health care provider stole taxpayer dollars for his own profit while he worsened our state’s opioid crisis, said Attorney General Jeff Jackson.
Randall was sentenced to a 30-month term of imprisonment plus 2 years supervised release by the Honorable Catherine C. Eagles, Senior United States District Judge in the United States District Court for the MDNC. This sentence is ordered to run consecutively to the 18-month sentence Randall is currently serving for a conviction in the Western District of Virginia.
Key Facts
- State: North Carolina
- Category: Fraud & Financial Crimes|Healthcare
- Source: DOJ Press Release â†â€â€
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