September 30, 2017| via Philly.com
by William Bender
A number of Philadelphia-area pain-management doctors, pharmacists, and related entities have been sued for prescribing $4.7 million in allegedly fraudulent pain creams — some costing nearly $8,000 per tube.
Liberty Mutual Insurance filed the lawsuit Sept. 14 in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court, claiming that 18 doctors have been sending workers’ compensation patients to pharmacies in which the doctors have a financial interest. The pharmacies would then bill employers’ insurance carriers for “vast quantities” of compounded pain creams at inflated prices, the suit says.
The suit alleges the doctors and pharmacists formed “illegal, collusive relationships” that exploited weaknesses in Pennsylvania’s workers’ comp system. It contends they created and prescribed compounded creams that are not included in the system’s fee schedule, leading to “highly inflated” bills of $5,000 to $8,000 per tube of cream. Read more.