A former Indiana physician has agreed to pay $1.7 million to settle allegations by the Department of Justice that he submitted fraudulent claims to the state Medicaid program, Fox 59 (WXIN-TV) reported Jan. 28.
Don Wagoner, MD, allegedly filed over 5,000 fraudulent claims and received close to $1 million in overpayments. The government alleges that Dr. Wagoner had patients who were seeking prescriptions for opioids or pain medicine consent to a urine sample for “testing for the presence or absence of nine or more drugs or drug classes,” according to the report.
Dr. Wagoner then allegedly used a multiplexed screening kit to test every single patient’s urine and bill it to Indiana Medicaid to receive approximately $171.27 or more per patient, violating Medicaid billing rules, which prohibit bills costing more than $20.38 per patient.
In December 2017, the federal and state government filed a joint complaint under the False Claims Act seeking to recover the overpayment and additional civil penalties. Dr. Wagoner surrendered his license to prescribe drugs and practice medicine four years prior, and was subsequently convicted of felony drug dealing, according to the report.
