Poor guy. Wish I knew this Doc a year ago!

[robotears]

I don't know how many people have heard about this guy already. This is old News but its an awesome story....

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

East Hampton physician Michael Chait accused of running drug ring and Medicaid fraud.

Dr. Michael Chait is escorted out of his Amagansett office on Tuesday by Inv. Ken Karp. The raid on his office came after a 7 month investigation by the state, county, East Hampton police and the DEA.

Source - http://www.amny.com/news/local/ny-lidrug0315,0,4191916.story Hands cuffed behind his back and looking disheveled, East Hampton physician Michael Chait stood before a judge in East Hampton Town Justice Court to face a litany of state charges related to a multimillion-dollar prescription-drug ring he allegedly ran out of his Amagansett office.

Prosecutors said Chait, 46, a South African-born physician who has lived the last three years in Sag Harbor, wrote illegal prescriptions for about 30,000 pills per day at his office in a medical park on Montauk Highway.

The scheme involved "millions of dollars" in fraudulent prescriptions for the painkillers OxyContin and Dilaudid, law enforcement officials said, and involved defrauding Medicaid. His practice is in the process of being closed.

Appearing before Town Justice Lisa Rana, Chait, wearing dark green pants and a green, collared shirt, his hair messy, spoke softly and kept his head bowed the entire time. Several times Rana had to ask Chait to "speak up," because his responses were inaudible.

His bail was set at $500,000 cash. His attorney, Craig Schaum of Garden City, refused comment. Chait is due back in court on March 20.

He did not enter a plea.

The special assistant state attorney general prosecuting the case, Monica J. Hickey-Martin, who is chief of the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit of the attorney general's office, said Chait was handing out prescriptions in the highest-possible doses: 80-milligram tablets of OxyContin, 360 tablets at a time, and 4-milligram doses of Dilaudid, 360 tablets at a time.

She said Chait would get Medicaid to pay the cost of the prescriptions, and if the agency refused, he would get clients to pay the $4,000 for each fraudulent prescription. She said Chait was writing prescriptions for 30,000 pills a day.

Customers allegedly traveled from New York City to visit the office in the building Chait's practice shared with "Curves," a local gym for women that is part of a national chain. The women in the gym, Hickey-Martin said, "were frightened by the men going to his office."

She also said of the practice run by Chait: "There was very little medicine going on."

Though the prosecutor noted Chait lectured patients on their smoking and drinking habits, he still dispensed scores of prescriptions each day.

The prescriptions were filled at pharmacies in the five boroughs of New York City.

Chait was charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance, a second-degree felony carrying a maximum sentence of life in prison, as well as several other felonies, among them grand larceny.

State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday in a statement: "To the extent this doctor allegedly misused the Medicaid system for his own personal profit and exposed individuals to these dangerous drugs, he will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law."

Prosecutors said the investigation into Chait's practice began in January. Investigators are still trying to track where all the pills involved ended up as well as what happened to the profits made by Chait.

[Duckfeet]

Nope, hadn't heard of this one, but I've heard and known of others. That's why I understand and sympathize with doctors. The problem is the illegality of opiates. Docs who show the slightest sympathy or compassion for junkies will get used up as fast as we can use them. There are often threads on this site, taking docs to task for not being more compassionate. but hell, we find a compassonate doc and we eat them alive. Hard core dopefiends like me can't *help* it. Shit, I've only known *one* doc, similar to this one, and I'd come, every month, from anywhere in the country, to his office, just to get around 100 #2 dilaudids...and it the beginning, I'd call him, and lie to him, until he put his foot down.

Docs, us, we're both caught in the same fucked up system, and we both get busted regularly...

Good story. Heroin maintenence in this country would solve this problem immediately, and docs would not need to worry...

It's sickening. All I did was google Oxycontin and Pensacola and Arrested. A lot more, for the very same thing, than I knew about. Makes me ill....

[jab]

No doubt duck, I've told this before, but I've had at least three different croakers like this. All three would write for ungodly amounts; without too much provocation on my part.

All three ended up the same as this story. Heck, one I used to see was even mentioned in a biohazard special on National Geographics channel. I saw him for about a year and he was the absolutely script writting champion. Had a side gig going for botox parties too.. One time he cooked up some "homemade" botox for use at one of these parties and used botchulinum inadvertantly, nearly killing himself and his wife in the process. They were brought to the ER completely paralized and needed to be ventalated.

Needless to say, ended up the same as above, and I had to seek yet another croaker.

There are scores of docs like these all over.. You just gotta look and listen. But, they all go down sooner or later, so you gotta be ready.

You know duck, if we could have heroin maint., I agree.. I think this would all end and docs could go back to making money as docs.. not croakers.

[EleusisII]

Come on now, a guy who charges 4000 bucks for a script isn't compassionate. He's greedy, and didn't quit soon enough.

When that is said, I do feel sorry for the guy. I support the black market as much as the next guy

And speaking of croakers, if you hear of one in Toronto, feel free to PM me!

[dirtdog]

damn
its too bad DRs get just as much harassment as junkies
My dr used to say the DEA was on his ass
He got his license taken away
too bad, he was a cool guy

[pharmboy]

I knew this Dr that had DEA agents undercover coming into his
office and trying to make him write scripts for too many, too much,
refills to often, they tried to set him up all kinds of ways. So he wouldn't
write for anything on the first visit and after he got your records and
knew you were lagit he would just write for normal pain control amounts.
I guess the bottom line is, the DEA will set up Dr.s if they can.