Pensacola women charged in nationwide $14.6 billion healthcare scheme. How did it work?

Yahoo

2 days ago

The U.S. Department of Justice completed one of the largest healthcare related takedowns in the department's history in July.
The National Health Care Fraud Takedown included 280 state and federal cases throughout 12 states and 50 federal districts. Four Pensacola women were also charged as part of $14.6 billion in total healthcare schemes.
Alexandra Christensen, Lindsay McCray, Heather Bradley and Jennifer Purves were federally indicted for allegedly spending nearly a decade forging controlled substance prescriptions as part of conspiracy to resell the unlawfully obtained drugs.
Here's what to know about the 2025 National Health Care Fraud Takedown that involved the four Pensacola women.
The 2025 National Health Care Fraud was a coordinated federal investigation involving multiple agencies that resulted in criminal charges against 324 defendants, including 96 doctors, nurse practitioners, pharmacists, and other licensed medical professionals, in 50 federal districts and 12 State Attorneys General's Offices across the United States.
The government seized over $245 million in cash, luxury vehicles, cryptocurrency, and other assets as part of the coordinated enforcement efforts.
U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Florida John Heekin said the effort is meant to "root out healthcare fraud that wastes taxpayer funds, depletes resources needed for vulnerable patients, and contributes to the opioid epidemic plaguing our communities."
The takedown involved various types of healthcare fraud, including fraudulent wound care, prescription opioid trafficking, telemedicine and genetic testing fraud, and even offenses involving transnational criminal organizations.
In total, including the four Pensacola women, federal law enforcement says all the defendants so far defrauded various health care facilities of $14.6 billion by stealing and distributing 15.6 million controlled substances in pill form or submitting false claims to Medicare.
The four women indicted by federal grand jury worked for a family medical practice that has multiple clinic locations throughout Escambia and Santa Rosa counties.
From Jan. 1, 2015, until June 25, 2024, McCray and Christensen allegedly abused access to the clinic's Electronic Medical Record system to print prescriptions under the Drug Enforcement Administration numbers of physicians at the clinic without their knowledge.
They allegedly wrote these prescriptions to people who did not exist, totaling over 300,000 hydrocodone pills and over 30,000 oxycodone pills.
Bradley and Purves then allegedly sold the pills to other individuals in the community.
"The defendants allegedly defrauded programs entrusted for the care of the elderly and disabled to line their own pockets," Heekin said in a news release.
McCray and Bradley are also charged with possessing amphetamine with the intent to distribute it throughout the community between November 2023 and June 2024.
McCray and Purves are charged with distributing amphetamine between January 2024 and April 2024.
Twenty nine defendants were charged for their roles in transnational criminal organizations alleged to have submitted over $12 billion in fraudulent claims to America's health insurance programs.
That tally includes a nationwide investigation known as Operation Gold Rush, which resulted in the largest loss amount ever charged in a health care fraud case brought by the Department, a DOJ news release said.
These charges were announced in the Eastern District of New York, the Northern District of Illinois, the Central District of California, the Middle District of Florida, and the District of New Jersey against 19 defendants. Twelve of these defendants have been arrested, including four defendants who were apprehended in Estonia as a result of international cooperation with Estonian law enforcement and seven defendants who were arrested at U.S. airports and the U.S. border with Mexico, cutting off their intended escape routes as they attempted to avoid capture.
The organization allegedly used a network of foreign straw owners, including individuals sent into the United States from abroad, who, acting at the direction of others using encrypted messaging and assumed identities from overseas, strategically bought dozens of medical supply companies located across the United States. They then rapidly submitted $10.6 billion in fraudulent health care claims to Medicare.
The 2025 National Health Care Fraud Takedown included 50 federal districts and 12 State Attorneys General's Offices across the United States, and resulted in:
Criminal charges against 324 defendants
Seizure of over $245 million in cash, luxury vehicles, cryptocurrency
Civil charges against 20 defendants for $14.2 million in alleged fraud, as well as civil settlements with 106 defendants totaling $34.3 million
29 defendants were charged for their roles in transnational criminal organizations alleged to have submitted over $12 billion in fraudulent claims to America's health insurance programs.
74 defendants, including 44 licensed medical professionals, being charged across 58 cases in connection with the alleged illegal diversion of over 15 million pills of prescription opioids and other controlled substances
49 defendants are being charged in connection with the submission of over $1.17 billion in allegedly fraudulent claims to Medicare resulting from telemedicine and genetic testing fraud schemes
An additional 170 defendants with various other health care fraud schemes involving over $1.84 billion in allegedly false and fraudulent claims to Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurance companies for diagnostic testing, medical visits, and treatments that were medically unnecessary, provided in connection with kickbacks and bribes, or never provided at all.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Operation Gold Rush healthcare part of scheme with Pensacola women