Here are five physician fraud suits Becker's has covered since Oct. 27:
1. New York pain management physician Duane Dixon, MD, pleaded guilty to unlawful opioid distribution and healthcare fraud. Dr. Dixon, along with a co-conspirator, were charged with conspiring to distribute opioids without a medical purpose across several Virginia clinics operated by L5 Medical Holdings between 2014 and 2019.
2. Metairie, La.-based physician Alex Glotser, MD, pleaded guilty for his role in a scheme to defraud Medicare of $5.6 million in medically unnecessary equipment and genetic testing. While working as an independent contractor for a telemedicine company from around September 2017 to August 2019, Dr. Glotser signed thousands of physicians' orders for Medicare beneficiaries he neither met nor treated.
3. Brian Hyatt, MD, a psychiatrist and former head of Arkansas' state medical board, pleaded not guilty to multiple charges of Medicaid fraud. Dr. Hyatt, who previously served as medical director of the behavioral health unit at Northwest Medical Center in Springdale, Ark., allegedly billed Medicaid for the most expensive billing codes while running the unit despite rarely being onsite at the facility.
4. Raphael Malikian, MD, a former physician based in Llano and Palmdale, Calif., pleaded guilty to federal narcotics charges for illegally dispensing and prescribing controlled substances. Dr. Malikian issued prescriptions for controlled substances to customers without first obtaining the person's full medical history, conducting a physical examination, requiring medical testing or utilizing diagnostic tools from at least December 2019 to August 2021.
5. Kenai, Alaska-based physician Ray Lynn Carlson, MD, and his clinics' managers have been indicted on 23 charges in a Medicare fraud case. From 2014 to 2019, Dr. Carlson allegedly fraudulently billed Alaska Medicaid, along with Aetna and Premera, from his clinics based in Kenai and Nikiski, Alaska.