Duane A. Evans, U.S. Attorney | U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana
A Louisiana physician, Adrian Dexter Talbot, M.D., has been sentenced to 87 months in prison for his involvement in a scheme to illegally distribute over 1.8 million doses of Schedule II controlled substances and defraud health care benefit programs of more than $5.4 million.
Court documents and trial evidence revealed that Talbot, aged 59, operated Medex Clinical Consultants in Slidell, Louisiana. The clinic accepted cash payments from individuals seeking prescriptions for controlled substances such as oxycodone, hydrocodone, and morphine. Despite signs that many individuals were drug-seeking or abusing the prescribed drugs, Talbot continued to provide them with prescriptions.
In 2015, after taking a full-time job in Pineville, Louisiana, Talbot pre-signed prescriptions at the Slidell clinic for individuals he did not examine. He later hired another practitioner who also pre-signed prescriptions under Talbot's direction in exchange for cash deposited into a Medex bank account. Patient records were falsified to cover up these activities.
With this knowledge, patients filled their prescriptions using insurance benefits from Medicare, Medicaid, and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana without appropriate examinations or medical necessity determinations.
Talbot was convicted by a jury on July 22, 2024, in the Eastern District of Louisiana on multiple counts including conspiracy to unlawfully distribute controlled substances and conspiracy to commit health care fraud.
The announcement was made by several officials including Supervisory Official Antoinette T. Bacon of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana among others.
The investigation was conducted by HHS-OIG, VA-OIG, FBI and the Louisiana Medicaid Fraud Control Unit while prosecution was led by Trial Attorneys Sara E. Porter and Gary A. Crosby II along with other members from the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section.
The Health Care Fraud Strike Force Program has charged over 5,400 defendants since March 2007 with collective billing exceeding $27 billion across federal health care programs and private insurers. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services are working alongside HHS-OIG to hold providers accountable involved in similar schemes.
More information is available at www.justice.gov/criminal-fraud/health-care-fraud-unit.
