Dozens of Appalachian doctors accused of fraud related to opioid fraud

(Reuters) – Dozens of health professionals in the Appalachians, a region severely affected by the opioid crisis in the United States, have been accused of writing hundreds of thousands of illegal orders and cheating health care, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.

Sixty people, including 31 doctors, were charged with illegally prescribing opioids in exchange for money and sexual favors in the rural mountainous area extending from Pennsylvania to West Virginia through Alabama and Louisiana.

"The opioid epidemic is the deadliest drug crisis in American history and the Appalachians are suffering the consequences more than any other region," said Attorney General William P. Barr in a statement.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, approximately 130 Americans die each day from an opioid overdose.

The charges resulted from an investigation by the Appalachian Regional Prescription Opioid Strike Force, a law enforcement agency created in December to crack down on prescription fraud maneuvers that have contributed to the law. deadly drug epidemic.

Charges have been filed against people in seven states: West Virginia, Tennessee, Ohio, Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania.

A Tennessee doctor who called himself "Rock Doc" was accused of negotiating sexual favors by prescribing opioids and benzodiazepines, the federal authorities said. Another doctor in Alabama reportedly recruited prostitutes at his clinic and allowed them to use drugs at home.

Several doctors have been accused of writing blank and pre-signed prescriptions for controlled substances without medically reviewing the patients who received them.

A few were accused of operating "pill factories", including one in Ohio that allegedly distributed more than 1.75 million pills between October 2015 and October 2017.

The period during which many doctors were accused of illegally and excessively dispensing drugs coincided with an outbreak of overdoses in the United States. Opioid overdoses increased by 30% between July 2016 and September 2017 in 45 states, according to the CDC.