A 73-yr-old Filipino-American plastic surgeon in Livonia, Michigan was sentenced to 96 months in federal prison for illegally distributing prescription pills and defrauding the US healthcare Medicare.
The United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) identified the Fil-Am doctor as Fanny Dela Cruz, who admitted that she wrote pre-signed prescriptions with her signature, the drug’s name, milligram and quantity. Dela Cruz would leave the patient name blank in the prescriptions that go to a marketer who would then sell the pills on the street.
Dela Cruz owned and operated a medical clinic in Livonia.
The Detroit News reported that over a 13 month period, Dela Cruz wrote fraudulent prescriptions for the following substances: 577,707 dosage units of Oxycodone HCI; 333, 394 dosage units of Oxymorphone; 35,185 dosage units of Alprazolam and 663,778 milliliters of Promethazine with Codeine.
Dela Cruz was reportedly the number one prescriber of Oxycodone and Oxymorphone in Michigan last year.
Dela Cruz has also “defrauded Medicare by billing for doctor visits, tests, and costs associated with patient appointments she never conducted,” according to The Detroit News.
The incarceration of Dela Cruz was announced by US Attorney Barbara L. McQuade on Thursday along with Timothy J. Plancon, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s Detroit Field Division, and Special Agent-in-Charge Lamont Pugh III of the U.S. Department of HHS Office of Inspector General’s Chicago Regional Office.
“More people die in America every year from prescription drug overdoses than from overdoses of all other drugs combined,” McQuade said. “In addition, prescription drug addiction has led to resurgence in heroin use. Physicians who divert prescription drugs to the street market are contributing to this epidemic, and we are focusing our enforcement efforts on stopping them.”
The case was investigated by the DEA, and the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the General Counsel.
Dela Cruz finished her studies at the University of the Philippines College of Medicine and also took post-medical school training at the UP General Surgery and Internal Medicine and the Wayne State University General Surgery and Plastic Surgery. She had certifications from the MI State Medical License and the American Board of Plastic Surgery.