A woman in Maryland pleaded guilty on Feb. 25 to federal charges that she illegally obtained controlled substances and participated in healthcare fraud.
Claire Elizabeth Rice, 68, admitted that she presented and filled 91 forged prescriptions in the name of a practicing cardiologist from 2008 to 2013. She was never a patient of the physician, according to federal authorities. Rice entered her guilty plea in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Rice received the prescriptions for oxycodone and other drugs from Novella White, 53, a co-defendant and former employee of the cardiologist. The physician said White did not have the authority to write prescriptions for herself or Rice.
White, who is also known as Novella Brown, has denied her role in the scheme. She is charged with presenting forged prescriptions for oxycodone and other drugs in her own name. A jury trial is set for April 18.
Authorities said that Rice billed the forged prescriptions to Express Scripts and Blue Cross and Blue Shield, which were defrauded the costs of filling the prescriptions.
Rice is scheduled for sentencing on June 3 and faces up to four years in prison for conspiracy and up to 10 additional years for the healthcare fraud scheme. She has agreed to pay $16,175, which was her share of the illegal proceeds obtained from Express Scripts and Blue Cross and Blue Shield.
Executive Editor
Tim Casey joined TriMed Media Group in 2015 as Executive Editor. For the previous four years, he worked as an editor and writer for HMP Communications, primarily focused on covering managed care issues and reporting from medical and health care conferences. He was also a staff reporter at the Sacramento Bee for more than four years covering professional, college and high school sports. He earned his undergraduate degree in psychology from the University of Notre Dame and his MBA degree from Georgetown University.