A medical marketer was sentenced to two years and five months in prison and ordered to pay more than $59 million in restitution for his role in a scheme that defrauded Tricare and other federal healthcare programs.
Quintan Cockerell, 43, of Palos Verdes Estates, Calif., worked with others to create and market expensive compounded medications that were intended to be tailored for individual patient needs, according to a July 12 Justice Department news release. Instead of tailoring the medications, a pharmacy designed formulations to maximize reimbursement from federal healthcare programs.
Pharmacy owners and others paid kickbacks to Mr. Cockerell and others, who recruited physicians to write prescriptions for the medications, including by creating investment opportunities so physicians who wrote prescriptions could profit from the pharmacy operations.
Mr. Cockerell was convicted in October of one count of conspiracy to defraud the U.S., one count of receiving unlawful kickbacks and one count of money laundering.