Doctors, landlord arrested in $2M pill mill scheme that stole Medicaid information from homeless and veterans – By Ellie Rushing (Philly Inquirer) / March 10 2020
Four people, including two doctors, were charged Tuesday with operating a pill mill scheme by stealing the Medicaid information of homeless people and veterans living in North Philadelphia group home properties and then writing faulty prescriptions in their names, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro announced Tuesday.
Between 2015 and 2017, the two physicians allegedly wrote 1,009 fraudulent prescriptions of Oxycodone and Xanax, equating to 99,753 pills with a street value of nearly $2 million, under the names of more than a hundred tenants living in the properties. The scheme cost Medicaid nearly $30,500, officials said.
Emmanuel Okolo, 53, and Mohanad Fallouh, 51, doctors at Carriage House Medical Group in Flourtown, were each charged with 388 total counts of Medicaid fraud, identity theft, conspiracy to administer a controlled substance, and related charges.
Evelyn “Tracie” Smith, 54, who owned and managed multiple “group home” properties on the 3500 block of North 18th Street in North Philadelphia, was also charged with the same crimes for allegedly working with the doctors and providing them with the personal identification and Medicaid numbers of hundreds of tenants living in her row homes.
Kent Hunter, Smith’s cousin, is facing 193 counts, including conspiracy to deliver a controlled substance, identity theft, and related crimes for allegedly working as an accomplice to Smith and the doctors.
Continue to article: https://www.inquirer.com/news/pennsylvania/philadelphia-pill-mill-okolo-fallouh-doctors-evelyn-smith-montgomery-county-20200310.html
