A North Carolina pharmacy owner was sentenced to two years in prison for a $4 million scheme to defraud Medicare, Medicaid and private insurers.
According to an Aug. 10 news release from the Justice Department, James Craig Bell owned Townsend's Pharmacy in Robeson County, N.C. Between 2006 and 2017, Mr. Bell trained employees to bill health plans for drugs that were never dispensed, and how to falsely reauthorize prescriptions from providers.
The scheme added up to at least $4 million in fraudulent charges to Medicare and Medicaid, according to the Justice Department.
Melisha Oxendine West, an employee of Mr. Bell's pharmacy, was sentenced in July to two years in prison for her role in the scheme.