Department of Justice
Texas Man Pleads Guilty to Receiving Kick Back Payments in Exchange for Referrals to OK Compounding
Adam Gallardo Arredondo, 59, of Waxahachie, Texas, pleaded guilty Monday to illegal remuneration for health care referrals. Arredondo admitted that he solicited and received checks from OK Compounding, a Tulsa pharmacy, in exchange for referring his patients’ compounding prescriptions. The compounding prescriptions were paid for by federal healthcare programs; therefore, the kickbacks paid to Arredondo violated federal law.
According to the plea agreement, the United States and Arredondo agreed to the following sentence – 36 months of supervised probation and restitution to be paid in the amount of $216,624.75. Arredondo further agreed to surrender his medical license. U.S. District Judge Gregory K. Frizzell will determine Arredondo’s final sentence at a hearing set for Sept. 24.
In the agreement, Arredondo stated that on January 1, 2013, he signed a Consulting Physicians Agreement with OK Compounding, located in Tulsa. The agreement stated that Arredondo would provide services in exchange for an hourly payment from OK Compounding. In his plea, Arredondo stated that he never provided the services listed in the Agreement but was instead paid for sending all of his patients’ compounding prescriptions to OK Compounding to be filled.
Arredondo also created the company, Taffinder Marketing, LLC, and recruited other physicians to enter into similar contracts with OK Compounding. Like Arredondo, those physicians did not perform the services in their contract; rather, they were paid to send their compounding prescriptions to OK Compounding. Arredondo’s company was paid a monthly fee for the recruitment services. On August 14, 2013, Arredondo received a $10,000 check from OK Compounding as payment for referring the prescriptions. The payment included prescriptions that were paid in whole or in part by the federal programs TRICARE, VA, Medicare and/or Office of Worker's Compensation Programs-Department of Labor.
TRICARE suffered a loss of $16,547.75 as a result of the crime.
Further losses incurred from other offenses not included in the plea agreement totaled $200,077.00. Those losses include:
Department of Labor: $14,746.58
Medicare $53,272.67
Tricare: $119,567.76
VA: $ 12,489.99
The Defense Criminal Investigative Service, the Department of Labor-Office of Inspector General, the Internal Revenue Service, the United States Postal Service-Office of Inspector General, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and United States Department of Health and Human Services-Office of Inspector General conducted the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Melody Noble Nelson is prosecuting the case.
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