Sandusky doctor facing drug, fraud charges

Doctor Gregory J. Gerber is charged with 51 counts of distribution of controlled substances and two counts of fraud.

Acting U.S. Attorney Bridget M. Brennan announced April 16 that a federal grand jury returned an indictment charging Gregory J. Gerber, 55, of Port Clinton, with 51 counts of distribution of controlled substances and two counts of health care fraud, according to a news release.

According to the indictment, Gerber was a licensed medical physician practicing in Sandusky specializing in physical medicine and rehabilitation and anesthesiology with a sub-specialty in pain medicine.

“The Northern District of Ohio, like many districts throughout the country, continues to combat a staggering opioid crisis,” Brennan said. “A common theme in this crisis is that many who now struggle with opioid use disorder do so because of a physician who unlawfully prescribed medically unnecessary opioid prescriptions or, in some cases, over-prescribed in a medically unnecessary way.

“Physicians alleged to have engaged in such conduct will be held accountable.”

According to the indictment, Gerber repeatedly prescribed controlled substances outside the usual course of professional practice and not for a legitimate medical purpose, including powerful painkillers such as fentanyl, oxycodone, oxymorphone and other drugs.

It further alleges that from January 2010 through August 2018, Gerber devised a scheme to defraud federal health care benefit programs by causing insurers to pay for medically unnecessary controlled substance prescriptions.

“Issuing prescriptions outside the usual course of professional practice and not for a legitimate medical purpose only aggravates the ongoing opioid epidemic,” said Lamont Pugh III, special agent-in-charge, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Office of Inspector General – Chicago Region. “Medical professionals are relied upon to perform appropriate physical exams, establish evidence-based, objective diagnoses, and prescribe medications only in a manner that will aid their patients.

“The OIG continues to investigate instances of alleged improper prescribing that potentially harms patients and wastes vital taxpayer dollars.”

As part of the scheme, Gerber improperly performed patient physical and historical examinations, failed to establish evidence-based, objective diagnoses and used these diagnoses to prescribe excessive doses of controlled substances for long periods of time without evidence of efficacy and while ignoring signs of addiction and drug abuse among his patients, it alleges.

It also allege that Gerber improperly sought reimbursement from Medicare, Medicaid and private insurers using billing codes that reflected a service more costly than what was performed.

“More Ohioans are dying from opioid overdoses than at any point in this devastating epidemic and this doctor helped put us here one prescription at a time,” Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said. “Ending this scheme was vital to an area that has been devastated by the opioid crisis.”

The indictment states that as part of the scheme, Gerber wrote over approximately 835 prescriptions for Subsys, a fentanyl-based cancer pain treatment medication manufactured by Insys Therapeutics Inc.

According to the indictment, some of the prescriptions written for Subsys were medically unnecessary and for patients who did not have cancer pain.

It is alleged that Gerber received compensation from Insys by participating in the company’s speakers bureau, a program that paid representatives to engage with other medical professionals and promote the Subsys medication.

While working as an Insys speaker, it is alleged that Gerber received between approximately $1,500 and $3,700 per engagement, totaling approximately $175,000 in payments and other items of value.

This case was investigated by the Cleveland Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration, Health and Human Services – Office of Inspector General, Ohio Attorney General’s Healthcare Fraud Section and Ohio Board of Pharmacy.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Megan R. Miller is prosecuting the case.