Health Care Crimes
ZMO Law attorneys defend doctors, dentists, nurses, and other medical practitioners accused of crimes related to their work in health care. Partner Tess Cohen was chief of the Prescription Drug Investigation Unit at the New York City Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor before she started with ZMO Law in 2021. Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma regularly defends physicians accused of sex crimes.
The crimes brought against medical practitioners are complicated. Defending them requires specialized knowledge of both the law and the practice of medicine. Health care professionals are frequently charged several different types of crimes including:
Health Care Fraud: billing for services not provided, submitting false claims to insurance companies, or participating in kickback schemes where the provider illegally accepts money from patients.
Prescription Drug Diversion: illegally prescribing or distributing controlled substances like opioid pain medication; illegal prescribing can lead to the same drug trafficking charges used to prosecute large-scale drug dealers.
Reckless Endangerment or Manslaughter: causing the death of a patient, often by prescribing opioids that leading to overdose and death.
Sex Crimes: doctors are frequently accused of improperly touching patients during medical examinations and can face severe civil and criminal penalties based on sex crime allegations.
What should I do if I am accused of a health care crime?
All health care related crimes are serious. Investigators rarely let a person know they are under investigation until they have already decided to charge them with a crime. Accordingly, you can almost never help yourself by speaking without a lawyer to the police, FBI, DEA or other agencies that investigate health care crimes. If you are approached by law enforcement the best advice is almost always to tell them you do not want to speak to them and you want an attorney present. You should immediately contact a lawyer with experience in health-care related crimes. You can call us anytime at (212) 685-0999. If you receive a subpoena for records, have a search warrant executed at your home or office, or otherwise have reason to believe you are under investigation, you should consult with a qualified attorney as quickly as possible.
Can a doctor convicted of a crime still practice medicine?
A medical provider who is convicted of a crime faces significant “collateral consequences”—bad effects from the conviction beyond the normal punishments that are imposed on non-medical people. Each situation is different and loss of license is not automatic in most cases. Some of the collateral consequences faced by medical professionals may include:
Loss of Medical License: A medical provider’s license can be revoked, suspended or limited upon conviction or in some cases as soon as the practitioner is accused of a serious crime. The New York Office of Professional Medical Conduct (“OPMC”) investigates and presents evidence to the New York State Medical Board when doctors or physician assistants are accused of misconduct. The New York State Education Department’s Office of the Professions conducts the investigations and prosecutions related to the licenses of nurse practitioners, nurses, physical therapists and other licensed providers of care. Decisions about how to proceed on the criminal case can be driven by the consequences for the provider’s licensing.
Loss of DEA License: Medical practitioners can lose their Drug Enforcement Administration (“DEA”) license to prescribe controlled substances, if they are convicted or accused of certain crimes, particularly illegal prescribing of controlled substances. A DEA License can also be partially revoked, meaning, for example, a person could still prescribe Schedule V controlled substances, but not Schedule II-IV controlled substances.
Exclusion from Medicaid, Medicare or other Health Insurance Plans: Doctors or other medical providers, including administrative employees, can be excluded from participation in health insurance programs or from working in offices participating in certain health insurance programs following a conviction for certain offenses. Exclusion from participation means that the individual or entity is barred from billing or receiving payments from federal health care programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.
Loss of Malpractice Insurance: Insurance companies typically have provisions in their policies that allow them to deny coverage or terminate the policy under certain circumstances, including criminal convictions.