A federal jury convicted a Louisiana physician yesterday for conspiring to illegally distribute over 1.8 million doses of Schedule II controlled substances, including oxycodone and morphine, and for defrauding healthcare benefit programs of more than $5.4 million.
According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Adrian Dexter Talbot, 58, of Slidell, owned and operated Medex Clinical Consultants (Medex), located in Slidell. Medex was a medical clinic that accepted cash payments from individuals seeking prescriptions for Schedule II controlled substances. Talbot routinely ignored signs that individuals frequenting Medex were drug-seeking or abusing the drugs prescribed. In 2015, Talbot took a full-time job in Pineville, La, and although he was no longer physically present at the Slidell clinic, he pre-signed prescriptions, including for opioids and other controlled substances, to be distributed to individuals there whom he did not see or examine. In 2016, Talbot hired another practitioner who, at Talbot’s direction, also pre-signed prescriptions to be distributed in the same manner at the Slidell clinic in exchange for cash deposited into the Medex account.
The evidence also demonstrated that Talbot falsified patient records to cover up the scheme. With Talbot’s knowledge, individuals filled their prescriptions using their insurance benefits, thereby causing healthcare benefit programs including Medicare, Medicaid, and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana to be fraudulently billed for prescriptions that were written without an appropriate patient examination or determination of medical necessity.
The jury convicted Talbot of one count of conspiracy to unlawfully distribute and dispense controlled substances, four counts of unlawfully distributing and dispensing controlled substances, one count of maintaining a drug-involved premises, and one count of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 23 and faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison for conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for each of the other counts. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.