Alisa Catoggio of Boca Raton, Florida, a former pharmacy technician and high-level executive assistant, has pleaded guilty to her role in a multimillion-dollar kickback conspiracy that defrauded TRICARE and CHAMPVA through a South Florida compounding pharmacy. Catoggio admitted that she was involved in a scheme that paid approximately $40 million in kickbacks to patient recruiters in exchange for their referring prescriptions issued to TRICARE and CHAMPVA beneficiaries to a Broward compounding pharmacy. The prescriptions were for expensive pain creams, scar creams, vitamins, and other medically unnecessary compound drugs, which were reimbursed at amounts of up to $15,000 for a one month’s supply. In addition, the Broward pharmacy did not charge the beneficiaries the mandatory copayments for the drugs, which constituted another form of illicit kickback. The coconspirators used phony charities to conceal this “no-copayment” kickback activity. The VA OIG, the Department of Defense Inspector General’s Defense Criminal Investigative Service, and the FBI Miami Field Office investigated this case.
