Business Owner Convicted

Needle

Michael Kestner, who owned, operated, and managed Pain MD pain clinics, was convicted for fraudulently billing federal health care programs approximately $35 million for medically unnecessary injections that were administered to opioid-dependent patients. Trial evidence proved that Kestner, who is not a physician, pressured nurse practitioners and physician assistants to provide multiple back injections to many, if not most, patients who came to Pain MD seeking opioid treatment. The injections were uniformly billed as tendon origin insertion injections (TOIs), even though almost none of these patients were diagnosed with pain in their tendons and, in many cases, it would have been medically impossible to administer TOIs with the equipment available to the practitioners. Read a story from Stars and Stripes and a Department of Justice press release.

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