A Tennessee podiatrist was sentenced today to four years in prison for a scheme to defraud Medicare and TennCare, a Medicaid program administered by the State of Tennessee, by prescribing and dispensing medically unnecessary foot bath medications and obtaining millions of dollars in reimbursements.
According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Nathan Lucas, D.P.M., 59, of Memphis, owned and operated a podiatry clinic and two pharmacies. Lucas regularly prescribed antibiotic and antifungal drugs to be mixed into a tub of water for patients to soak their feet. These drug cocktails included capsules, creams, and powders that were not indicated to be dissolved in water and some of which were not even water soluble. Lucas chose these medications to prescribe and dispense based on their anticipated reimbursement amount, rather than medical necessity. From October 2018 through September 2021, Lucas caused his pharmacies to submit nearly $4 million in claims to Medicare and TennCare for dispensing expensive foot bath medications that were not medically necessary and not eligible for reimbursement, for which Lucas’s pharmacies were reimbursed over $3 million.
A federal jury convicted Lucas on March 18 of five counts of health care fraud.
Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; U.S. Attorney Kevin G. Ritz for the Western District of Tennessee; Special Agent in Charge Tamala E. Miles of the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG); and Director David Rausch of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) made the announcement.
HHS-OIG and TBI investigated the case.
Trial Attorney Sara E. Porter and Assistant Chief Justin M. Woodard of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section prosecuted the case, with assistance from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Tennessee.