DOJ Blocks Two ‘Reckless’ Ohio Docs From Prescribing Opioids

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has won a court order that temporarily prevents two “reckless” Ohio physicians from writing opioid prescriptions — a never-before-used weapon in the government’s ongoing battle to combat the opioid crisis, according to a DOJ news release.

The US Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio was granted temporary restraining orders against Michael P. Tricaso, DO, of Akron, and Gregory J. Gerber, MD, of Sandusky, on August 17, according to the Akron Beacon Journal. It is the first time the federal government has used such a tactic to stop physicians it believes are prescribing opioids illegally under the Controlled Substances Act.

The two doctors are barred from prescribing while the US attorney’s office — in conjunction with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Office of Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services, the Ohio attorney general’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, the State of Ohio Board of Pharmacy, the Cuyahoga Falls Police Department, and the State Medical Board of Ohio — continues its criminal investigation.

“Today’s announcements are a warning to every trafficker, every crooked doctor or pharmacist, and every drug company, every chairman and foreign national and company that puts greed before the lives and health of the American people: this Justice Department will use civil and criminal penalties alike and we will find you, put you in jail, or make you pay,” said US Attorney General Jeff Sessions in remarks delivered in Cleveland on August 22.

“These doctors were simply drug dealers in white lab coats,” said US Attorney Justin Herdman, in the DOJ statement. “They illegally prescribed painkillers and other drugs for no legitimate medical purpose.”

DEA Special Agent in Charge Timothy Plancon called the physicians’ actions “reckless” in the release, saying their “corruption has had a tremendous affect in opioid addiction that is plaguing America.”

Undercover Operation

The government alleges that Tricaso — who worked as a “gym doctor” for a fitness center — sold steroids and other controlled substances on many occasions to an undercover DEA agent. He offered to sell the agent Percocet (a combination of acetominophen and oxycodone) without a prescription and to write prescriptions for 20 pills or less, saying that would prevent monitoring by pharmacies or the DEA.

Gerber worked as a private physician. The US Attorney alleges that from 2013 to 2016, Gerber received $175,000 from Insys Therapeutics, Inc, to promote Subsys, a liquid formulation of fentanyl. The payments constitute kickbacks under the False Claims Act.

An undercover agent also received prescriptions for oxycodone, dronabinol, and alprazolam from Gerber, despite having no pain complaints. Gerber performed only minimal examinations and then wrote the prescriptions, according to the government.

The justice department has allocated extra resources for law enforcement agencies working to address the opioid crisis in Ohio. “We are sadly well aware that Ohio at is the center of the drug epidemic,” said Sessions, noting that in 2016, Ohio had the second-highest overdose death rate in the nation.

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