In a major crackdown on health care fraud, a Tennessee couple has been sentenced for a scheme that swindled $65 million from TRICARE, the health care program serving U.S. service members. According to a press release from the U.S. Attorney's Office, Jimmy Collins, 59, received a 10-year prison term, and his wife, Ashley Collins, 37, was condemned to 18 months of home confinement.
Recruiting sham beneficiaries – primarily unsuspecting Marines from Southern California – the Collinses' scheme revolved around compounded medications, for which they offered kickbacks. Scribbling on prescriptions without even examining the patients, the doctors and a nurse practitioner at Choice MD, operated by the Collinses, turned these acts of deceit into hard cash. The recruits were promised a kickback of around $300, making them pawns in the couple's grand scheme.
The rigged prescriptions were then funneled to The Medicine Shoppe, a pharmacy in Utah, which proceeded to bill TRICARE exorbitant amounts, sometimes over $20,000 per fraudulent prescription. Between late 2014 and May 2015, right before TRICARE halted reimbursements for such medications, the conspiracy led to thousands of counterfeit claims, amassing over $65 million in ill-gotten gains from TRICARE reimbursements.
The couple, living in Birchwood, Tennessee, landed themselves in hot water with the law, along with their opulent acquisitions – including an 82-foot yacht and two Aston Martins – all of which were purchased with fraud proceeds. These items and more were confiscated by authorities, sending a clear message that crime does not pay. "Access to medical care is not a benefit for the service member, it’s a benefit to the rest of America to have a healthy and well cared for military force," U.S. Attorney Tara McGrath said in the statement obtained by the Justice Department.
With the Collinses now facing the consequences, the message from law enforcement is clear – defrauding military healthcare programs is a serious offense with significant repercussions. As described by Acting Special Agent-in-Charge Gregory Shilling of the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, the pursuit of such illegal actions is relentless in order to protect military service members, their families, and taxpayer funds. Special Agent-in-Charge Greg Gross of the NCIS Economic Crimes Field Office echoed this sentiment, speaking to the dedication of NCIS and their partners in ensuring the integrity of government programs.
While Jimmy Collins has been hit with a decade behind bars and Ashley Collins is confined to her home, the entire operation now lies in ruins. Other perpetrators, including the doctors who prescribed the medications, the corporate owner of the pharmacy, and the patient recruiters, either await sentencing or have already been sentenced. As for the Collinses, the court ordered them to pay a staggering restitution of $65,679,512.71 to the Defense Health Agency and TRICARE, leaving their life of luxury a distant memory.
