The Department of Justice and other federal enforcement agencies continued to hotly pursue individuals and entities involved in criminal telefraud schemes in 2022, as evidenced by the national coordinated law enforcement action announced on July 20, 2022, as well as the many indictments, pleas, and convictions related to telefraud schemes publicized throughout the year. These telefraud schemes, which began to emerge as an enforcement priority in 2019, involve payment of kickbacks to physicians to induce them to order medically unnecessary durable medical equipment and certain laboratory testing, sham telehealth visits, and fraudulent billing, among other things. The pandemic likely accelerated these schemes, given the relaxation of telehealth visit requirements by the Medicare program and other third party payors.

At the same time, criminal enforcement activity took a different turn when the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) initiated investigations of telemedicine providers pursuant to the Controlled Substances Act. While the DEA has allowed telehealth providers to prescribe controlled substances without an in-person exam during the public health emergency (PHE), the DEA is nonetheless concerned that certain telehealth providers may be overprescribing controlled substances, such as Xanax and Adderall, or prescribing them without conducting a fulsome patient evaluation. This article provides additional details regarding this issue as well as the status of the...

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