A podiatrist and a patient recruiter were sentenced to prison and ordered to pay more than $7 million in restitution for their roles in a scheme to fraudulently bill TriCare for medically unnecessary compounded creams.
Brian Carpenter, DO, a podiatrist based in Paradise, Texas, received a 45-month prison sentence, while Jerry Lee Hawrylak, of Lake Worth, Texas, was sentenced to 60 months. Both were involved in the scheme from November 2014 to January 2017, according to a Dec. 4 news release from the Justice Department.
Dr. Carpenter signed prescriptions for compounded pain and scar creams for TriCare beneficiaries without ever speaking to, examining or treating them, in exchange for kickbacks. Mr. Hawrylak recruited both Dr. Carpenter and TriCare beneficiaries to participate, facilitating the prescriptions for the medically unnecessary creams.
Together with co-conspirators, the pair fraudulently billed TriCare approximately $8.5 million for these creams, according to the Justice Department.