Tampa resident and pharmacy owner, 44-year-old Peter Bolos, has been convicted for his role in a $174 million telemedicine scheme.
In a release Dec. 3, acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee Francis Hamilton III said patients had been given medication they had not requested, stating trial proof demonstrates Bolos chose the prescriptions specifically to maximize profits, rather than taking patients’ health care needs into consideration.
“The United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Tennessee applauds the unwavering efforts of the multiple agencies involved in this collaborative investigation to bring this extensive health care fraud and misbranding scheme to justice,” Hamilton said in the release.
On Dec. 2, a federal jury in Greeneville, Tennessee convicted Bolos of 22 counts of mail fraud, conspiracy to commit health care fraud and introduction of a misbranded drug into interstate commerce, following a month-long trial.
Documents and evidence presented at trial state Bolos and his co-conspirators — Andrew Assad, Michael Palso, Maikel Bolos, Larry Smith, Scott Roix, HealthRight LLC, Mihir Taneja, Arun Kapoor and Sterling Knight Pharmaceuticals, as well as various other companies owned by them — deceived pharmacy benefit managers on tens of thousands of prescriptions.
As the managers processed and approved claims for prescription drugs on behalf of insurance companies, the release states, Bolos and his co-conspirators took advantage of this, defrauding them into authorizing claims worth more than $174 million that private insurers paid to pharmacies controlled by the co-conspirators.
