North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein recently announced a $1.45 million settlement with South Carolina clinic Med First Immediate Care and Family Practice, P.A. (“Med First”). Stein alleged that Med First was operating as a pill mill and filing false claims with Medicare and Medicaid for unnecessary urine drug tests and long and/or complex office visits that never happened.
According to Stein’s office, between January 2015 and August 2019, most of the patients seen at Med First were receiving opioid medication. During that time period, Med First allegedly submitted claims to Medicare and Medicaid for urine drug tests to either screen for the presence of drugs and/or identify the concentration of drugs in a patient’s system, without first determining whether patients needed the test. Med First allegedly then failed to use the results from the drug screens to change the patient’s opioid prescription. Med First also allegedly billed for complex medical visits, when in reality, providers spent very little time with patients and often just refilled prescriptions for opioid medications.
While Med First has offices located throughout North Carolina and South Carolina, the location at issue in the case with Attorney General Josh Stein was in Dillon, South Carolina, which is very close to the North Carolina border. This meant many North Carolina residents crossed into South Carolina to receive care (and opioid prescriptions) from Med First. According to the Med First website, the Dillon location permanently closed on January 15, 2024.
“We are continuing to confront a deadly opioid crisis, brought on in part by irresponsible health care providers who flooded their community with unnecessary opioid pills,” said North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein. “My office will continue working with our state and federal partners to hold accountable providers who defraud North Carolina taxpayers and harm our people.”
Other Med First Allegations
This settlement with North Carolina follows a 2021 $58,699 settlement with the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS OIG) and Med First. In that case, Med First allegedly submitted claims to Medicare for specimen validity testing in connection with claims for urine drug testing when specimen validity testing was a non-covered service.