Physician Convicted of Medicaid Fraud in Drug Vial Scheme

By: Justin Vaughn, M.Div, CPC
Director of Compliance
4/15/2011

The Telegraph newspaper in Macon, Ga. has reported the guilty plea of Dr. Kathy Mansfield relating to charges of Medicaid fraud.  Representatives of Georgia’s attorney general stated that from 2003 to 2007 Mansfield was routinely administering a single-dose drug to a patient, and then instructing her staff to administer the remaining portion in the vial to a subsequent patient.  She then billed Medicaid as if she had used a second vial. 

This practice runs counter to the FDA’s instructions regarding single-use vials, which mandate that providers are to discard any remaining portion in a vial after removing the patient’s dose.

Georgia officials also revealed that Dr. Mansfield was billing Medicaid for large vials, though she was actually using smaller, cheaper vials.

Mansfield was sentenced to 10 years of probation, restitution of $537,428, fines of $10,000, and investigative costs of $5,000.  Accordingly, pain management physicians should be exceedingly careful to abide by the drug wastage rules.  After all, the government is watching!

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