On August 18, 2020, healthcare marketer Vinson Woodlee was indicted on one count of conspiracy to pay and receive healthcare kickbacks and three counts of soliciting and receiving healthcare kickbacks. Woodlee, the owner of Med Left LLC, was a marketer for NextHealth – a pharmacy and laboratory services company controlled by Andrew Hillman and Semyon Narosov.
According to the Department of Justice (DOJ), NextHealth identified the industry’s most profitable prescriptions and illegally paid physicians to prescribe those prescription’s through NextHealth pharmacies. NextHealth would also funnel some of those kickbacks through marketers like Woodlee.
From 2012 to 2018, Woodlee allegedly collected over $60 million in kickbacks, $16.8 million of which he passed onto “his” physicians and $30.6 of which was passed on to sub-marketers who then likely passed a portion to “their” physicians. Woodlee allegedly demanded NextHealth give him roughly 50% of the profits from each prescription and refill written by the doctors he recruited. It was with that 50% that he would funnel money to his physicians and sub-marketers.
Woodlee also allegedly tried to exploit the AKS “bona fide employee” exception by disguising his relationship with NextHealth from 2013 to 2014 as a W2 employee receiving “salary” and “bonuses,” but in reality, those were the agreed-upon kickbacks.
After that scheme, Woodlee and NextHealth agreed that instead of disguising the kickbacks as his own wages, NextHealth would disguise the payments as wages of three of his family members – Person A, Person B, and Person C – who were “hired” by NextHealth as account executives in December 2014. From 2014 to 2016, Woodlee would communicate with NextHealth about the compensation of his three “hired” family members.
Then, in Spring 2016, Woodlee executed a new contract with NextHealth. The new contract increased his commission on non-federal insurance premiums from 50% to 58%, a move that allegedly essentially compensated him for federal insurance prescriptions written, a clear violation of the AKS.
Because NextHealth billed federal insurers for its prescriptions, it was subject to the federal Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS) – as were any marketers working on behalf of NextHealth. The AKS prohibits knowing and willful payments of any kind of remuneration to either induce or reward referrals for prescriptions or other services paid for by federal healthcare programs.
If convicted, Woodlee faces up to 35 years in federal prison.
Related Cases
In a separate but related case, Hillman and Narasov both pled guilty to engaging in a money laundering conspiracy. According to the DOJ, both Hillman and Narasov admitted that NextHealth used marketers to funnel illegal kickbacks to physicians, then attempted to conceal those payments, and submitted fraudulent claims to insurers. Hillman was sentenced to 66 months in federal prison for his involvement, Narasov was sentenced to 76 months.