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23 PRACTICE MANAGEMENT Simple. Sterile. Single-use. Stericerv™ For more information on specific Zavation systems, please see package inserts at http://zavation.com/general-information/ 220 Lakeland Parkway – Flowood, MS – 601.919.1119 – www.zavation.com – sales@zavation.com Cervical instrument kit that is compatible with Zavation's standard, midline, and all-in-one devices. STE-0001.P1A Pain physician charged in fraud scheme, ordered to pay $8.7M — 6 insights By Angie Stewart D over, Mass.-based pain manage- ment physician Fathallah Mashali, MD, was sentenced to eight years in prison and ordered to pay more than $8.7 million for defrauding Medicare, insurance- newsnet.com reports. Here are six insights. 1. Dr. Mashali was accused of falsely billing Medicare from approximately October 2010 through March 2013 for medical services he didn't provide. In March 2017, he pleaded guilty to 44 counts of healthcare fraud, conspira- cy to commit mail fraud and money laundering. 2. Dr. Mashali documented that he conducted extensive physical exams, claiming each visit lasted at least 25 minutes, but oen saw his patients for less than five minutes. 3. Dr. Mashali didn't perform any physical examinations and/or adequately address pa- tients' medical status or history during the short encounters, yet he overprescribed pow- erful narcotics that resulted in fatal overdoses for some patients. "At one point, Dr. Mashali was one of the high- est-volume prescribers of oxycodone in Mas- sachusetts, second only to a leading Boston hospital," said U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling. 4. Dr. Mashali billed Medicare and private in- surers for drug test results from invalid urine samples that had been stored up to three months, not refrigerated, in a sunlit space. He instructed lab technicians to move the unre- frigerated urine out of sight during inspec- tions and test samples in ways that violated Medicare billing rules. When the federal government began investi- gating Dr. Mashali's billing practices and re- quested 40 patient medical files for an audit, Dr. Mashali forced his staff to engage in falsifi- cation of patient records, including faking and backdating patients' urine drug test results. 5. Dr. Mashali overbooked appointments and sometimes arrived to work up to four hours aer his first scheduled appointment, causing overcrowding that prevented meaningful as- sessment of each patient. 6. Dr. Mashali spent the money obtained from illegal Medicare billing on his residence in Dover, Mass., which was adorned with a squash court and movie theater, as well as a Florida condominium. "is sentence ensures Dr. Mashali will never again treat — or mistreat — patients in order to line his own pockets at the expense of pa- tient care," Mr. Lelling said. n