Fifty-one-year-old Hollywood resident Scott Novick, who owned several American Pain Management clinics in Palm Beach and Broward Counties and the Pacific Pharmacy in Miami, had previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit health-care fraud, amounting to $2.2 million in Medicare losses.
Last week, Novick was sentenced to six and a half years in prison and was ordered to liquidate his financial accounts and forfeit almost $1.4 million to Medicare. As part of his plea agreement, Novick admitted he made fraudulent claims to Medicare for cases at his clinic he knew weren't reimbursable. And he said he hid his ownership of Pacific Pharmacy to avoid legal repercussions after Florida passed laws prohibiting clinics from distributing controlled substances such as opioids.
Most of the prescriptions fulfilled at Pacific Pharmacy were written by a doctor at American Pain Management who often had never met the patient. The doctor would write prescriptions for drugs at "inappropriately high levels" and for no "legitimate medical purpose," according to a DOJ release.
Pacific Pharmacy in Miami owned by Scott Novick, where patients at Novick's other property could get pills for no actual medical purpose.
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"Scott is cognizant of the consequences to not only himself but to his family as well, and he is incredibly shamed, saddened, and accepting of the fact that it is his failure and his alone that put his family in this position," Eliani wrote to the court.
A July 9 hearing has been scheduled to determine further restitution in the case.
Novick is the latest in a line of pill mill owners and other conspirators sentenced by the Department of Justice this year, including seven Floridians who were busted in February for receiving bribes and kickbacks for providing unnecessary medical treatment. The Greater Palm Beach Health Care Fraud Task Force, which investigated those cases, has nabbed 30 convictions to date.
