Every aspect of the healthcare industry has strict regulations, from continuing education for physicians to the physical conditions and staffing of healthcare facilities to patient privacy. Doctors and other healthcare workers are always on their guard to avoid violating regulations and being subject to fines or license suspension, but medical errors and noncompliance with regulations are not criminal offenses, except in the most serious of cases. Fraud, identity theft, and drug crimes are punishable by prison time and probation whether they take place in a healthcare setting or anywhere else. If you are being accused of financial crimes in connection to your work in the healthcare industry, contact a New Jersey white collar crime attorney.
Healthcare Fraud
One of the most common reasons that employees of hospitals and medical offices need the services of a criminal defense lawyer is in the case of defense for fraud involving healthcare claims. You can be charged with healthcare fraud if you knowingly make false statements on medical billing claims. This includes claims submitted to Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare, and private insurance companies. Some cases of healthcare fraud include billing for services that were rendered or ordering medically unnecessary lab tests, treatments, and medical devices. In some cases, some parties to the fraudulent scheme pay kickbacks to each other.
Identity Theft
Medical office employees have access to large amounts of confidential data about patients. The amount of information that patients must provide about themselves to receive treatment is enough to make them vulnerable to identity theft. Employees of healthcare clinics have been charged with identity theft when they have misused patients’ financial information, such as credit card information, bank account numbers, or Social Security numbers. You can be charged with identity theft if you use a patient’s financial information to make purchases or if you sell the information to a third party.
Drug Diversion
Physicians, hospital employees, and pharmacists have much easier access to controlled substances than the general public does. If you steal prescription drugs from your workplace, you can be charged with theft, illegal possession of controlled substances, or both. Physicians who prescribe or dispense drugs with a high potential for abuse when these drugs are medically unnecessary can face criminal penalties. The regulations about prescribing opioid painkillers are much stricter than they were in the days of strip mall pain clinics a decade ago. Physicians have been charged with drug trafficking, and many more have been charged with lesser offenses, for prescribing drugs to patients that they knew or reasonably should have known were going to resell the drugs.
Contact a Healthcare Crimes Defense Lawyer
Being a doctor does not make you immune to criminal charges for drug crimes or financial crimes. A criminal defense lawyer can help you if your medical office is the subject of a criminal investigation or if you are being accused of a healthcare-related crime. Contact the Law Offices of Jonathan F. Marshall to discuss your case.
