Here are eight court cases involving providers that have made headlines since March 17:
1. Kentucky physician James Chaney was awarded $14 million in his lawsuit against CVS and Rite Aid of Kentucky for wrongly attributing drug orders to him. Mr. Chaney was charged in 2014 and was indicted for illegally prescribing drugs, running a pill mill out of his pain management clinic and conspiracy to commit money laundering. He consequently lost his medical license and was sentenced to 30 months in prison. The jury in the lawsuit found that CVS and Rite Aid knowingly reported Mr. Chaney wrote prescriptions he had not.
2. New York physician Sudipt Deshmukh, MD, is facing a manslaughter charge in a patient's opioid overdose death. Dr. Deshmukh, a primary care physician, allegedly prescribed a lethal amount of opioids and other substances to a patient he was aware struggled with addiction.
The patient died in 2015. The judge has not released his decision in the trial, which wrapped up March 20.
3. Former Louisiana physician Jeffrey Evans pleaded guilty to one count of prescription drug fraud. Mr. Evans was indicted alongside nurse Debra Craig for allegedly conspiring with other people to obtain Schedule II controlled substances hydrocodone and Adderall by fraud from Jan. 2, 2014, to March 9, 2022. He is scheduled for sentencing July 12.
4. Chris Boulange, MD, was arrested on four counts of unlawful distribution of controlled substances. Dr. Boulange, who practices in Wailuku, Hawaii, allegedly prescribed hydrocodone, alprazolam and diazepam without legitimate medical purpose. He faces a maximum statutory penalty of 20 years in prison and a fine of $1 million.
5. Johnson City, Tenn.-based Dalal Akoury, MD, and AWAREmed Wholistic Urgent Care must pay $100,000 to resolve allegations they violated the Opioid Addiction Recovery Fraud Prevention Act of 2018 and the FTC Act. They allegedly made misleading advertising claims about the clinic's success in treatments for substance use disorder, cancer, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, among other illnesses.
6. Meridian, Miss.-based physician Gregory Auzenne, MD, pleaded guilty to a federal charge in connection with a $1.5 billion nationwide pain cream fraud scheme. He admitted he did not notify authorities of questionable activity conducted by former pharmacist Marco Moran, who pleaded guilty to his involvement in the scheme and is serving a 10-year prison sentence. Dr. Auzenne was originally indicted for violating the anti-kickback statute, three wire fraud charges, three conspiracy charges and for making false statements. The jury cleared him of all charges except for the false statement charge.
7. Former Escondido, Calif.-based anesthesiologist Leng Ky was sentenced to 17 years in prison for sexually assaulting patients while they were unconscious. Mr. Ky pleaded guilty to committing sex crimes against four women between 2015 and 2020 at the pain management clinic he operated at the time of his arrest in 2020.
8. Indiana state Sen. Tyler Johnson, MD, is facing a wrongful death lawsuit following the death of a woman who allegedly died less than an hour after Dr. Johnson, an emergency department physician, provided treatment. The lawsuit, filed in May, alleges that 20-year-old Esperanza Umana had a heart attack resulting in her death because of Dr. Johnson's treatment.