Pennsylvania Woman Gets A Year In Prison For Forging Opioid Prescriptions

Over the past couple of weeks, the Allegiant Experts
 Blog has returned its focus to the topic of America’s opioid crisis. As we’ve
 highlighted in many a blog, it’s an epidemic that is taking lives at an
 alarming rate. Created to be pain killers, opioids of all kinds are becoming
 the culprits in numerous overdoses across the country. And, sadly, several
 medical practitioners are to blame for having opioids illegally distributed.

63 year-old Belinda Dietrich isn’t a medical practitioner. But she has joined the list of criminals who have found ways to get opioids on the street without legitimate prescriptions. As reported by the Middle District of Pennsylvania branch of the United States Department of Justice this week, the Marysville resident was sentenced to one year and a day in prison for forging the signature of a dentist on no less than 164 prescriptions for opioid drugs. Her sentence begins on January 6, 2020.

According to the report, Dietrich pleaded guilty
 before Senior U.S. District Court Judge Sylvia H. Rambo in April of this year.
 The defendant admitted to one count of distributing a controlled substance and
 one count of making false statements in health care matters. A former
 receptionist for a solo dental practitioner in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania,
 Dietrich forged the signature of her employer on many occasions.

On February 13, 2017 she made use of a blank
 prescription form in order to fraudulently attain oxycodone pills for her
 mother. Her mother was a Medicare beneficiary, but not a patient of the
 dentist. Dietrich then took the prescription she wrote herself to have it
 filled at a Harrisburg area pharmacy. She ended up receiving 24 oxycodone pills
 and kept the drugs for her own use.

“The pharmacy billed the cost of the oxycodone pills
 to Medicare, which paid the claim,” the DoJ confirms. This was only the
 beginning of Dietrich’s forgeries. Between February 2016 and August 2017, she
 forged a total of 164 prescriptions for oxycodone and hydrocodone.

It works by tricking the brain to change how the
 body feels and responds to pain. Hydrocodone is also used to relieve severe
 pain, but is prescribed only to people who are expected to need medication to
 relieve severe pain around-the-clock and cannot be treated with other
 medications or treatments.

According to the DoJ report, “Dietrich filled out 10
 of the bogus prescriptions for herself; the rest were made out to the names of
 11 friends and family, who then filled the prescriptions at local pharmacies
 and shared the controlled substances among themselves. All together, more than
 5,022 oxycodone and hydrocodone pills were obtained in this manner. All 11
 individuals were prosecuted by the US Attorney’s Office for their role in the
 forged prescription scheme.”

Please don’t hesitate to contact Allegiant Experts to find out how our clinical expertise may help your case. Our experts have been providing expert clinical services for nearly two decades and can help your team by bridging the disciplines of medicine, coding and billing to ensure accurate payment and data is achieved. Give us a call at 407-217-5831 or email us at info@allegiantexperts.com.

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