Ronald W. Chapman, II

Top rated Criminal Defense attorney in Detroit, Michigan

Chapman, Dowling & Mallek
Ronald W. Chapman, II
Chapman, Dowling & Mallek

Practice areas: Criminal Defense, Health Care

Licensed in Michigan since: 2009

Education: Loyola University Chicago School of Law

Selected to Super Lawyers: 2024 - 2026 Selected to Rising Stars: 2015 - 2023
Free Consultation

Chapman, Dowling & Mallek

456 E Milwaukee St
Detroit, MI 48202 Phone: 346-242-7626 Email: Ronald W. Chapman, II Visit website

150 Acquitted Federal Counts \ $550 Million Saved for Clients

“One of the most talented attorneys I have seen in my 20 years on the bench”

Federal Judge 

"The largest acquittal in Detroit in the last 10 years" 

Detroit Free Press

From the United States Supreme Court to Federal Districts, Ron Has Achieved Acquittal Despite Overwhelming Odds

Ron’s track record of federal trial acquittals is simply unmatched. Ron formed SHG to help health care providers avoid federal criminal scrutiny. As a result of the tireless dedication of the best health care experts in the country, Ron has prevented over $550 million in government overpayments, fines, and forfeitures.

From the War on Terror to the War on Opioids

Ron cut his teeth in Federal Investigations during the Global War on Terror for the United States Marine Corps. As a Marine Corps Officer and Lawyer, he conducted high-level federal gun, drug, and terrorism investigations. He returned home and applied his skills to the defense of healthcare providers facing federal investigations, prosecutions, and False Claims Act cases. For the last decade, Ron has racked up a list of trial acquittals, dismissals, and non-prosecutions that lead the nation.

Through the diligent presentation of his client’s case and exacting attention to detail he has earned the respect of fellow defense counsel and federal judges, one of whom commented he was the best he’s seen “in 20 years on the bench”.

Unmatched Trial Results and Acquittals in High-Profile Cases

He achieved an acquittal in a $550 million healthcare fraud and 56 count drug trafficking and healthcare fraud indictment against five physicians who were accused of distributing 13 Million doses of Oxycodone. That same year he acquitted Dr. Lesly Pompy a former Cleveland Clinic Physician accused of over $12 million in healthcare fraud and unlawful prescribing. Shortly after he achieved the dismissal of Dr. Thomas Sachy who was accused in a Federal Indictment in Georgia of killing two patients by prescribing Oxycodone. In addition, he acquitted two Kentucky physicians in separate trials against the Department of Justice’s Appalachian Regional Prescription Opioid Task Force (ARPO). Both physicians were separately charged with unlawful prescribing and healthcare fraud. Both were fully acquitted and will return to practice.

Ron is a frequent guest on national news networks including the BBC, Fox News, Newsnation and Newsmax as well as podcasts.

First Admitted: 2009, Michigan

Bar / Professional Activity

  • Michigan State Bar Administrative Law Section
  • The Marine Corps League 
  • Michigan State Bar Criminal Law Section 

Verdicts / Settlements (Case Results)

Videos

  •     Intro You know, the doctor needs to have some level of trust in the patient, but what the DOJ has accomplished, they've instilled the fear of God, so they're not prescribing with the most gentle and kind DEA agents, right, Juan? [laughter] I I was speaking with our agent friend yesterday and you came up, but yeah, that's right. Oh, I bet I did. [laughter] law group from the beautiful Miami office with us. Hello, Juan. Hi. How are you? Wonderful. Wonderful. Thanks for asking. And we've got the wonderful Claudia Morreni from the Don't Punish Pain Rally with us as well. How are you Claudia? Hi, Ron. Thanks for having me. Oh, you're very welcome. Thanks for joining us today. And and and where are you in quarantine right now, Claudia? I'm in Providence, Rhode Island. Wonderful. How's the weather out out there? It's beautiful. It's beautiful. I've just been getting more vitamin D. I like we were just talking, it's time to stimulate the economy. TJ Maxx is open and I'll be stimulating the economy today. Nice. Fantastic. Um now, just a bit of background for everybody. Claudia is um is the president right of the don't punish pain rally uh an organization that's devoted to ensuring that um chronic pain patients have an advocate um not only in the legislature various state legislatores but also on the national level and the media level and uh and first I'd just like to say Claudia your mission was well needed for a very long time while doctors have their voice through their council pain patients were sort of left unheard and I think you you met a very important need. Um but but with that, Claudia, tell us about your organization, what you do, and and how you help pain patients. So, three years ago, I went on social media and I announced I was going to organize a national protest for pain Don't Punish Pain patients because the 2016 C guidelines, you know, really created mayhem in the medical community. And you know in my mind I'm thinking one rally but before you know it we had 46 47 planned and I started with five members there's over 10,000 and we organize uh rallies throughout the country for pain patients who have been left as collateral damage because their doctors have been targeted doctors are fearful to prescribe. So my work started, my advocacy started organizing these rallies and then I was kind of pushed into the box with the doctors and now my energies are, you know, finding doctor's legal counsel, getting com, you know, talking them into getting compliance before they run into an issue with the DEA or the medical boards and um protect them. You know, my mission right now is to protect every prescriber and continue to build a base of compassionate doctors who are willing to treat some of the sickest people in the country. And between all of that, I've been able to get legislation sponsored in Rhode Island, which passed the House unanimously. And my legislation has been taken into other states because that was the goal. you know, get some, you know, not boilerplate, but something addressing chronic intractable pain, and it's, you know, I was supposed to hit the Senate, but COVID happened. Um, and I'm I feel pretty good. I think 2021, it should pass unanimously. But, it's been a fight every day. It's a fight every day. And now that I'm involved with the doctors, it's a whole another, you know, my patient stories never kept me awake at night, but the doctors, you know, I have a strict rule. I never take calls after 5:30 because I'm a little highrung. And I hear the doctor's stories and I was like, "Oh, are you kidding me?" So, just when I hear one crazy story, you know, the DEA rating them um and they work in tandem with the state medical boards, another one comes rolling in and now the doctors call me and they say, you know, I can't sleep, Claudia. I'm sick to my stomach. I I'm having nightmares that the DEA is going to come in. And, you know, I'm like, do you have a lawyer? That's my first like who's your lawyer? And I reach, you know, I reached out to Ron maybe under a year ago and Ron got right back to me. I like Ron, but I want to see lawyers win. And you know, it's time to find I call them rats, the people that testify against the, you know, these really good doctors. And then we find these rats with no pain management background. And then the rats testify against Ron, as you said, well-intentioned physicians, and then before I know it, I've got another few thousand patients who don't have doctors, and now they're going to be forced to hit the streets, and they're going to overdose on whatever the cartel is bringing in. So, it's just this hamster wheel that never ends. So, I've got a few questions based off that, Claudia, and thank you so much. First, first things first, when people want to find out about you, where do they go? So they can um so the main page we've got 50 pages on Facebook. The main rally page is don't punish pain rally and that's on Facebook and then I've created 50 state pages. So you can organize within your own state page. But then if people need to hire an advocate, they can find me at the drpatientforum.com and they can click help, submit a form, and we do our best to advocate whether it's going over images or just placing them with the doctor. And thank you for that. And the thing that comes to my mind when I when I hear you speak is that in some sense a doctor's failures in compliance or in Compliance Plans following what the DEA is expecting of them. Of course, these rules are very shifting and difficult to figure out, but a doctor's failure to adhere to that um seems to have a very negative impact on your constituents, your primary constituents, the the the patient population. So, what what would you say out there to uh the doctors who, you know, don't have a lawyer, don't have a compliance program, are just sitting down with patients and prescribing, but aren't really paying attention to rules and requirements and regulations. What What do you say to those physicians? Well, first and foremost, I say don't get an attorney that's writing wills during the day. Um, and you mentioned that in our podcast a few weeks ago. Um, but most importantly, you know, I had this discussion with you. I want to buy a pain management center, but then after I spoke with you, I said, "This is dangerous because right now I am exercising my right freedom of speech and I've got a big mouth, but if I become an investor, um, what's going to happen?" So, I tell my doctors, why wouldn't you bring a compliance officer in to be sure you're following the protocol, even though the protocol is very shady? Because, you know, we've taken those CDC regulations and we've turned them into law, but if I was practicing, I would not only have a compliance program set up. I would want to know that um I would want to be able to prescribe safely, but prepared for the worst. Um, so what's happening now is the doctor's like, "Well, forget it. If I have to pay to do A, B, C, and D, I'm just not going to prescribe." And that's where we are. We probably only have 10,000 prescribers in the country. So, get some a compliance program in. I mean, it you're paying for peace of mind. Yeah, that's that's a that's a shame. I think we probably have over 20 million pain patients in this country. um and and maybe maybe lesser in chronic pain but certainly the need is not being met similar to the number of um suboxone doctors out there. So um the next thing what what rule or regulation or or idea has been most damaging to the pain patients of this country over the last 10 or 15 years? the 2016 CDC guidelines CDC Guidelines vs Patients by far. Those were created with um some addiction specialists, uh big backers of Suboxone. They were created in secret. The FDA had no knowledge until those guidelines were released. And the CDC had no business creating guidelines addressing prescribing. They're supposed to focus on disease. So they're, you know, they said, "Well, we are we're focusing on the disease of addiction." But they lumped in pain patients into addicts. And now that I'm working with addicts, I can 100% say with certainty, my IV heroin users are not in the same group as my 75year-old spinal stenosis patients. So the group, you know, those CDC guidelines need to be rewritten um with pain management specialists, not addiction. But, you know, a lot of doctors think because they're prescribing Suboxone, they're safe. But that's not the case. Suboxone doctors are getting targeted just as much as um doctors who were prescribing FDA approved opioids like Oxycontton, Oxycodone. And I just spoke with a psychiatrist and he said, he said, "Oh, I'm the he said to the FBI agent, I'm the I I'm the good guy." And I said, "What did you mean you're the good guy?" He said, "Well, I" I said, "I I you know, prescribe Suboxone." I said, "I don't understand. You're a good guy as opposed to a bad guy prescribing oxycodone, but that Suboxone will be diverted much more than that oxycodone." Um, so it's just it's bizarre how the doctors think, but I don't think doctors are businesssavvy individuals. I think these are analytical thinkers. They're medicine men, right? And when you discuss the law and compliance and attorney, they shut down. So that was one of the main reasons I called you to begin with, like, let's bring the two together so we can get patients the care that they need because if nobody's willing to prescribe, then I'll have 30 million suicides because that's what's happening. Step one, we've got to remove the fear, right? I mean, it seems based on what you're saying and some of what I've experienced, physicians are reluctant to prescribe opiates not because they believe patients don't need them, but because they're simply afraid of how they may look for prescribing opiates to the federal government. And I think that that fear, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that that fear is because of lack of knowledge of how they're supposed to appropriately prescribe and some of the fear that's been generated by the CDC guidelines. Let me give you an example about irrational fear. The CDC guidelines are really bad, right? But the one thing that people fail to understand, well, two things people fail to understand about the CDC guidelines. Number one, they do not they specifically in the first paragraph or first page say that they do not apply to pain management physicians. They actually only apply to primary care physicians. And number two, the MME minimum threshold dosages were only supposed to be sort of uh risk stratification devices to to determine that if you're over a certain MME, you should consider um alleviating some of the risk by increasing compliance. Instead of reading those guidelines for what they were supposed to be, and they were still damaging even if you read them the way you were supposed to, physicians lumped them all in together. They said, "I need to cut off every patient above 90 MME." Right? So they start cutting people across the board and they start cutting them down and then they stop treating patients for chronic pain altogether in their primary care practice. Now when that happened in this country, there were not enough specific pain management patients to take those patients on. And so every single one of those patients went to a doctor who never read the CDC guidelines, who wasn't up to date on their medicine, and had pain patients now flooding into their office, which was ripe for prosecution. And that's how we end up with all of these, you know, 75 to 85 year old doctors who haven't been to med school in a very long time who see opiates the way that Purdue Pharma used to see them back in the, you know, 70s, 80s, and 90s and were prescribing according to the old guidelines and not the new ones. And that was the powder keg for sort of the war war on opiates. But uh I know I know that uh that that you're the one being interviewed here, but you know this is just a very very interesting discussion point for for how we got into this mess. Now the one thing that um that I think that that that we're all lacking here and the ability to appreciate is what the perspective is like for that chronic pain patient. Um without divulging specific stories, I don't really need Pain Patient Death you to get into that. What is it like for those folks who are out there who can't find a doctor that out of fear um can't find a doctor that is willing to prescribe to them? Well, I'm a pain patient. I, you know, I spent 12 years in the hospital with Crohn's disease. So, I ran my court reporting agency from the hospital. I raised my kids, but I kn the reason I got I fell into this role is because I was sick of being treated like a drug seeker. And when I would go to the hospital, you know, they're like, "Uh, what's wrong, Claudia? You're back again." But yeah, you know, I've got a colostomy bag, so things happen in life and I don't have an immune system. But you know, the role of a pain patient is first you have to find a doctor. And that doctor is as soon as you walk in that door, you are guilty in that doctor's mindset because he doesn't know am I getting an addict? Am I getting a pain patient? Because doctors don't learn a whole lot about pain management in medical school. Maybe six hours, right? So now it's the dance. So you have to say enough, but don't say too much because you don't want to become a complicated patient. But these doctors actually put out, well, you know, you can come to see us, but we don't prescribe opioids. You're a pain management center. What do you do? Like, how many injections do you offer these people? So, if you're able to find a doctor, able, right? It's um you know, you have to start well, we first we have to try anti-depressants because the pain's all in your head. You probably you know, we're going to try anti-depressants, then we're going to try Suboxone. No, no, no. I don't want Suboxone. I don't want anti-depressants. I don't need steroid injections. And it's this game, but it's, you know, the patient is left feeling so defeated. So, if you're able to find a doctor, then you have to make your way over to the pharmacy. And if you're getting greater than 90 MME, chances are the pharmacist is not going to fill it. And you have to drive 200 miles to find a pharmacy who's going to fill it. So, not only do you have the angst leading up to the visit, but you have the angst of going to the pharmacy and then only to be sold, oh, Blue Cross isn't covering it. Oh, you're in Oregon. They decided anybody with Medicaid doesn't mean opioids. So, those 2016 C guidelines have um created the pain patient death movement. That's how I refer to it. These people are already sick. Like, I fight, Ron. So, I've been sick my whole life, but people right now with COVID, the healthy people, you're getting a dose of my life, of my community's life, but we're used to this life. Now, the fight for the hydroxychloricquin or whatever it's called. So, now you're seeing, you know, oh, I've got to fight for medication. I've got to fight to get tested. But the life of a pain patient has come to a screeching halt. And we have to resurrect the pain management practice and we have to protect the doctors who are willing to treat these very sick people. And there's some great doctors out there and they call me and they say, "Plia, I want to prescribe, but I'm so afraid." And that's when I said, "Well, bring some compliance in. Sit down with the attorney. There's got to be some type of protection if you have compliance in. How safe am I from the DEA? And it's not only the DEA, it's the unscrupulous medical boards, Ron, right? I mean, they're just as low down as, you know, the the DOJ and the DEA. So, let me The life of a pain patient, it it's bad. It is very scary for these people, my veterans with no limbs. They they had to choose between their benzo or their pain medication. So I mean I advocated for a woman she had both you know double amputee she serves the country and she comes back and the do the VA says I can't prescribe both you have to pick one and she said well I I'm I can't my anxiety well try some anti-depressants you know pick one what's what means more your pain or your anxiety this is disgusting I'd love to get it's absolutely terri I'd love to get Juan's perspective on this because as a compliance attorney specifically down in sort of the the hard hit DEA area of Miami may have some tips for some of those providers out Miami Pharmacies & Doctors there that are that are scared to prescribe and treat some of that population one um what's what's what's the status down there? What what can folks do to protect themselves? All right, so first I want to put some context and go to the root of the problem, right? And the problem obviously is the federal government and politics, right? when the explosion of cases involving Purdue Pharma, right, there were some bad apples. There's always bad apples in any industry, but what the federal government did because of the pressure, the political pressure they were facing, and a lot of people that were dying and most of the people that are dying are kids basically. They're stealing the medication from their parties, etc., and becoming addicted that end up taking heroin. It's not the the people that really need it. So it's typical for the federal government to in a year without doing the research that they need to do without talking with specialists without celebrating many public hearing etc calling the CDC guys hey come up with something and then the federal government the DEA the FBI everybody they go straight to enforcement right instead of going into prevention basically let's penalize everybody we have to put a stop of it because either Trump is going to lose the election or the mayor is going to lose the ele lose the election so we have to go to the root not the problem. There were some bad apples and because of the political pressure basically they ended up penalizing the good persons that really need this type of medication. Right. So in Miami it's not only the physicians that that are having problemsarmacies also right so like like you were saying Claudia when a doctor feels like and they have pain management clinics that this person really needs uh to basically have pain medication. I have many of my client that call me said one this patient need it he went to CVS Kermark and they don't want to dispense the medication I have to send letters to CVS Kermark say listen we're going to sue you etc CVSer obviously uh they either don't reply and then going after CVS Kermark or Walgreens they basically either the patient or the doctor don't have that money to fight right so the most important thing that physicians need to know is basically compliance and like you were saying Claudia people I don't know why they're afraid of compliance, right? What the government is looking for, right? And or the DEA, etc., is for the doctor to do a medical evaluation. And the most important thing for the doctors is to have medical records and or evidence to substantiate the problem, right? So, if I go into an accident, I break my L1 vertebrae or whatever, hey, get a copy of that X-ray, put that X-ray in the medical record. That's the evidence. Meet with the patient at least 30 minutes, 45 minutes. Get a HIPPA relief from the patient from his other doctors. Get the records, review everything. Also extremely important is to look and evaluate how that patient is doing. Right? If we give you 30 oxycodons a month and you come at the at day 20 and you need 30 more, hey, wait a second. Let's go ahead. Let's do another medical evaluation. Let's do an additional testing to see what's going on. Maybe I can give you more lower dosage. Right. What the DA looks for immediately is the amount of pain of of pain medication you're prescribing a month. Many of my bad apples clients were prescribing 200 uh a month of oxycodone 60 or 30. It's not that that is that that is illegal or that is not correct, but it's something that if you're doing that, you have to be aware that if they come to investigate you, you better have those medical records and you better substantiate what that patient, why that patient needs that amount of medication, right? For example, I had one in the DA that was fighting. We went and look at the patient. He was a cancer patient, right? So, she needed more medication. Each case you have to evaluate separately. But the most important thing is recordkeeping. recordkeeping. When the when the DEA, the FBI rates a physician office, what they're looking basically first of all are going to be the medical records of those patients that you are dispensing the medication. If your medical record look good, right? You know, basically you're not going to have a problem. Or if the government wants to come after you and you get Ron or I or any healthcare attorney, we have our evidence, right, that we're going to use as leverage against the government to dismiss the case. The other important thing that I think is extremely unfair to physician health care providers is that once you get into trouble, it becomes a domino effect. This country was made because of you shouldn't have double jeopardy. You shouldn't be penalized for the for the for the same violation over and over and over. So when you have a doctor that is doing things correctly or doing things fine or you have one that is basically a bad apple that do is doing uh or violated the rules or regulations at the end of the day what you have to look at is hey am I doing things right? Am I doing things correctly? Do I think with my medical background that there is a medical necessity to prescribe that pain management that that pain medication to that patient. Um so it's extremely important recordkeeping uh is one of the first thing that the DEA look at. Um the other issue is that this from 2013 on and I think 2015 it carried on and Ron was saying this many of these people are not attorneys or they're they're physicians. So they pass CDC guidelines or or Ron and I which deal with pharmacy DEA red flags. Right now, after I don't know how many years, when somebody's going to purchase or you're the owner of a pharmacy, they give you a seminar. Beautiful prevention. Explain what you what you should look for. What if you see a patient that's coming to the office, he's sweating, he looks kind of like, you know, that has a problem or he So, all of that training and prevention is really good, but they don't inform the physicians and or the pharmacist for that matter. Hey, listen, this is what we're looking for. What they do is they issue a subpoena. They issue a search warrant. You didn't follow the CDC guideline. Well, the CDC guideline, I didn't even know that they came out. Red flags. Red flag. And guidelines and red flags are not rules and regulations. It's not law. They're not issued by Congress. Right? So, there's some guideline. There's some red flag. If you don't go into the DA website and or as an attorney, you don't know what those red flags are, right? So I think it's extremely important for the physician to feel comfortable within his medical practice and and with what he was taught and everything. I look and evaluate that patient and feel comfortable that hey this patient's needed. I'm going to record it. I'm going to see him every month. Every month when I when he comes back how does he look? Does he look good? Uh does he come? How is basically his appearance? Right? So, so that is something that it's kind of like common sense or instinct that that the doctor should feel like I don't think my patient looks good today. Maybe let me lower that amount of oxycodone or percoet to see how he responds to that. And you because pain management and ded is trial and error, right? It's kind of like the same thing as compliance. You have to check what works, what doesn't work to see how the patient feels comfortable. Less anxiety, less pain. If I take too much this happen I so it's a constant relationship between the physician and the patient and it has to be that real relationship I think like an attorney and a client providing a bite hey maybe you could get some medical marijuana don't use that mo that much oxyto let's try half and half try to look for that balance and feel comfortable uh that basically you're doing the right thing but so so that you don't be scared the most important thing is basically medical records and having the evidence to substantiate your reasoning of why that patient needs what I'm prescribing. Well, so um that really good points, Juan, and and with respect to fear, and Claudia, you probably noticed this with a lot of the pain patients you've dealt About DPP Rally with. Um they're just simply tired of the DEA and other government entities basically sitting down between them and their physician when the physician is in the office um treating the patient. Now, instead of a physician patient interaction, you have a physician who is sitting there scared of what the DEA may think of what they do, of whether or not they're going to get fairly reimbursed for the service that they're providing, whether or not their medical records equate to the level of service that they've provided. And that whole dance that that physician has to go through prevents them from sitting down and listening listening to the pain patients. And Claudio, my question is this. Have you had some of um the pain patients that you've dealt with or maybe even yourself uh feel that they're they're no longer having physicians listen listen to them as a person and listen to their problems because of all these requirements that are put on them? They're not treated like human beings anymore. They're treated like addicts. So you're an addict until you can prove otherwise. But there's you you know the doctor needs to have some level of trust in the patient. But what the DOJ has accomplished, they've instilled the fear of God, so they're not prescribing. And you know, after I watched that how to fix a drug scandal on Netflix, I had to rewatch it again. And I called you and I said, "Do do they have a chance of winning?" You know, it's a daunting task when you see when the DOJ puts out their press release how they nailed the doctor. When a doctor is done, when the DOJ is done with the doctor, there's skeletal remains and that's it. They've been robbed of their reputation. There's they put probably $300,000 into their education. Some of these guys have only been practicing for like 12 years and then the raid happens and that set the government has made an example of these good doctors and then they said we're just not going to prescribe. Look what they did to Dr. Smithers 40 years. And I mean now that I know how they're charged with the weight, you know, they're charged based on the weight of drugs. So they'll compare the weight of OxyCo, how many pills they prescribed, and they'll compare it to weed. And that control substances act has been horribly misabused. Um, and that needs to go. I don't know. I don't, you know, I spoke with a group of physicians in Colorado and they had a DEA seminar, you know, how to prescribe without going to prison. So I'm thinking after this seminar, they're going to feel invigorated and feel safe. They're like, forget it. I'm not prescribing. We all decided we're not going to prescribe. This is um you mentioned Joel Smithers. Uh first things first, we are on Joel Smither's side for his case and look forward to um um bringing some justice to him. Uh it's a completely proono project by this firm and he's authorized me to to to disclose that fact. But uh I hope that we can do the right thing for Joel and and see him released or at a very minimum uh that that egregious sentence be be taken care of in in the fourth circuit. So we're looking forward to getting his appeal off the ground and and fighting for him to take care of him. We're looking, you know what we're looking forward to? We're looking forward to a DEA oversight hearing and a DOJ oversight hearing and that's the next step because it's like cut enough like no more. The DOJ needs to be reigned in. The DEA needs to be reigned in. We've got rogue cops. And I worked for the feds as a court reporter. And let me tell you, I remember being in the jur the grand jury room with 16 highly uneducated jurors, confused by jury instructions. And when you're in a federal jury situation, it's 14 or 16 people there together for a very long time, the court reporter and an attorney like drilling it into these people's head. This they did A, B, C, and D. Well, anybody will be indicted in a situation like that because we're dealing with lay people who don't know what jury instructions are. So, this is very intimidating to the doctors. And when I get on the phone with doctors, I'm like, tell me about your, you know, how are you documenting your cases? Are you doing urine drug screens um every three months or are you doing them every 30 days? How many steroid injections are you, you know, do you think you're safe because you're doing steroid injections in exchange for a very small dose of opioids? But a lot of doctors, they're like, I'm already doing way too much paperwork and I'm not getting paid. So, you know, they got to tack on another three hours of paperwork for prescribing, right? So, that's like another nightmare. And then that prescribing monitor base that's being weaponized. So that was supposed to be there to protect people, but now it's you terrorize the doctors with the PDMP and you te you're using those control substances contracts against the doctor and that was a tool that was put in place to um you know is the patient taking their medication? Are they not taking the medication? Well, turns out those urine drug screens are probably going to be used against the doctor, and I don't see how it's protecting anybody, but we're we're so far off the charts with how prescribing is happening. We have hit corruption. And just to let you know, well, we have filed a class action lawsuit has been filed in Rhode Island against CVS. So, that's going to be made public record. I probably spilled the beans, but I don't care. And and let me say something. We didn't have an issue with with overprescribing cultural substances or people dying until the FDA being lobbied by Purdue Pharma changed the rules and regulations for what that oxyto was going to be used. That basically what triggered everything, right? So, so that that move basically was the thing that jeopardized the entire good people and the pain management community because of that change, right? Another thing I was going to say before when I said spoke a little bit about double jeopardy is the position the physicians are even if they don't get charged. If you get an investigation or a subpoena or a search warrant or a CD or whatever it may be for records, if it's from the DEA, that's going to trigger a licensing investigation that could trigger an investigation by Medicare. They want to put you in the OIG exclusion list if something happened. The DEA obviously wants to remove your DEA certification. Insurance plans basically learn from that. So even if you don't even get indicted, the the the physician had to spend so much money because each of those agencies are separate agencies and separate administrative process which is extremely unfair. Uh so I'll say that. Yeah. No, you're you're absolutely right, Juan. And and Claudia, in terms of looking forward, I know that you mentioned that there's a class action lawsuit and there's some legislation that you're fostering to get to get out there. Um but but our role as attorneys and the one thing that we can do unless we decide lobbyists is to plain old fashioned win in court, right? And and there's there's nothing that will be a more powerful signal to the DEA, breaking in this new administrator by litigating hard against him and having him realize that he's not immune from uh overturned appellet decisions. um winning against the DOJ in the courtroom, which is something we've been blessed and able to do on behalf of doctors. But but if we do two things, I think that we can write the ship. Number one, remove the fear by getting doctors good compliance programs so that they're not running outside of the pack and they're running in the pack because the DEA is going and picking off all of those doctors who are out on the fringe prescribing certain ways. And it's not our desire that doctors stop treating pain patients. It's it's it's our desire and our attempt to get them treating them in a way that keeps them inside the pack of core physicians while effectively handling a population of pain patients. So get compliance, keep them inside the pack, and then those folks that are unnecessarily targeted, the most aggressive legal defense possible by attorneys who know how to Healthcare Defense Attorneys actually defend doctors, right? And who know how to win in court and who know where the evidence is and where to look. Um, the one most single damaging thing to pain patients and physicians, I believe, has been crappy defense attorneys who don't know what they're doing. I'm gonna be honest. Oh, absolutely. Abs. I I I hear the cases and I'm like, well, how many doctors has this lawyer represented? None. I said, you hired a a lawyer to represent everything you've ever worked for and this lawyer's never represented a doctor. Like, these aren't healthc care doctors. No. So now I reach out to these doctors. Who's your lawyer? Oh, my cousin Vinnie. No, no, you don't need No, not my cousin Vinnie. No, no, no. You know, and when you when I talk with them about compliance, they're usually silent and they'll say, "Well, I already do all of that." Okay, well then you should be okay. But it's not only the, you know, the DEA. They're so afraid of their state's medical boards. So, if I was a healthc care defense attorney, I would be hosting seminars for these attorneys. You know, they always want how much I don't know how much. How much does Ron Chapman charge? How does how much did you know, how much is compliance? I don't know. But I would host um how to prescribe safely. Um, you know, I would host sessions maybe two times a year after COVID. Like, let's resurrect the the pain management practice. Let's get these patients in a good place. Most importantly, let's get the physicians in a good place where they can sleep at night and not have nightmares at 40. DEA agents are barreling in their office, which can I just say, how stupid is that? I mean, I Joel Smithers is doing more time than cartel members, but it's, you know, it's very it's scary. It's it's a daunting task, but I'm confident, you know, we had this problem 20 years ago when we were living in an underprescribed nation and then some doctors blamed the fifth vital sign on the opioid crisis. Well, that's just silly because we're at an all-time low of prescribing and we're going to hit some serious overdose skyrocketing over the next six months. It's going to be bad for this country. People were never overdosing on or they haven't been for quite some time on prescription pain medication. You know, in Rhode Island 2018, 366 overdoses, all of them had one thing in common, elicit substances, heroin, um, fentinyl. So, no, I So, and I think, you know, because I'm in the smallest state in the country, when I get called to advocate for a lawmaker, I was like, well, you know, nobody overdosed. Um, it's, you know, it's just not happening. So, we've targeted the wrong substance and now we're pushing the overdoses to increase. So, you know, I tell my doctors, please get some compliance in your office. What's going to make you feel comfortable? Let's get a lawyer out there to see you so you can prescribe safely. Follow protocol. And even if you don't agree with the protocol, um, just do it or don't stay in pain management. Claudia, I got some I got some good news. Uh because Ron uh the second Ron Senior and I uh we both have masters in health law which are called LLMs and all of them from Loyola University. That was a coincidence but we've been meeting probably a year or six months and we created a company called Chapman Consulting Group for this exact same reason. We want to go and provide seminars. We want to do books. We want to comply compliance program for physicians. compla for pain management for pharmacies. We already created this company and we'll be coming soon you know doing podcast seminars etc. So, so that's going to be great for the doctors because at the end of the day, 90% of my clients want to do the right thing, right? Is that they didn't know, you know, they didn't know that they had to do X or they have to do Y. So, we are in that process of obviously creating this type of of, you know, giving this information to the doctor in more a direct matter so that manner so they don't have to feel afraid of of issuing prescriptions. So, I just wanted to say that. Thank you very much, Juan. I appreciate that. And Claudia, I just have one final but but sort of big question. What what can we do for your constituents as a law firm, as attorneys, as people engaged in the healthcare industry to help understand what they're going through and help uh prevent, you know, these further harms and abuses. So I think you know I know when the patient sits down with their doctor they're always afraid to reveal too much but what I think is a good start for the pain patients having this discussion with the physicians and this is something very small is having a one-page p just a pamphlet to give to the doctors and say I'm just going to leave this here for you doctor you know we're we're we're supporting providers um and we're just trying to bring the legal community together with the provider so the pain patient can continue to receive access to pain medication. Something like a small flyer. That's how the don't punish pain rally movement was stoked was by flyers. I don't know how I have over 10,000 people today. I don't know how this happened but that's how doctors found me as well is through their patients through the rally. So if it starts with a just a onepage flyer, Chapman Law Group is providing a webinar regarding prescribing safely. It's hosted by advocates. Sometimes an advocate can make a big difference between a doctor and a lawyer. I, you know, I see it all the time. There's that they feel like they're almost protected from I don't want to say from the lawyer, but that's kind of how it is. Yeah. information and accessibility sounds like what they need. something that will help them remove the fear um but also not be couched in a way that may make them think that there's huge legal price tags associated with it or a lot of redundant information that they've already gotten before but something absolutely yeah I feel you that's the first question how much I don't know how much how much I ended up in this at least on my side the doctor and the physician community and or people because in Florida you don't have to be a doctor to own a pain management clinic, but they have to basically realize that compliance is an insurance. Okay? The more you invest now, the more you're going to save later because when the DEA comes in, if they issue a search warrant and you are basically following our rules and regulation, they will review the records and they will leave you alone. Maybe you have to hire us, but it probably won't be that much because once we review the records, we send a letter to them. There's no issue here. So always realize that investing in compliance is part of the expenses of you running a clinic, a pain management clinic. Uh so that's extremely important and look at compliance again as insurance. Less you you pay now you save later. Yeah. Could you imagine an anybody operating in a highly regulated industry needs to be prepared for prepared for compliance. Could you imagine an airline not investing in FAA compliance council, right? or a manufacturing company not investing in compliance for its products so it can understand and and know that those products are coming off the market safe. That's just how the world works these days. Compliance is key and you've got to make sure you comply. Um but it seems that is that many of many of the physicians around the country have lacked information on how to comply because some federal agencies have kept that very secret. Right? Whereas and it varies from state to state. You know, those are guidelines, but those CDC guidelines have been turned into law, and it's now, you know, in Oregon, well, it's the CDC guidelines. Well, we're going to change it to 60 and to 60 morphine. And then in Vermont, and New Hampshire, 30. No, no, no. This was not supposed to happen. And here's the the thing. The state medical boards knew this was going to happen. All of the Department of Health, they knew this was going to happen. But there's so much money to be made in medication addiction treatment Matt programs that nobody cares because there's billions to be made in addiction and nothing to be made in chronic pain. But you know, and I tell my doctors, look, be honest with me. If you're honest with me, I'll respect you. But when I get some of the doctors on the phone and they tell, well, we're a non I'm a nonopioid anesthesiologist. Well, go cut here then. You shouldn't be an anesthesiologist, right? you know, and we're having nonopioid hip replacements. Well, then I'm not having a hip replacement. And I'll tell you what, I'm effective. And I will talk I've talked thousands of patients out of surgery. Don't do it because you will be left for dead. Think about that surgery. But I was just contacted by a woman. The pallet of care team came in the hospital. She's having she just had a colostomy bag put on a very painful procedure. and they wanted they offered her Suboxone as posttop. She's never she's she's never taken you know she takes pain medication but for a surgery like that and I've had it um I said excuse me Suboxone for posttop pain and I got on the phone and I said this is going to be young team of pallet of care doctors because it's what they're learning suboxone no I don't think so. Yeah. So it's it's bad. It's very scary. And the thing about it is it could happen to anybody in a blink of an eye. You're one car accident away from, god forbid. You know, I never knew how common it was for people to fall in elevator shafts. Just really crazy things. But my illness I inherited from my dad and now my daughter has it. So, it's um elderly. Everybody is affected. And I have an expression, you're not affected until you're affected. And you know, doctors, let's get that compliance in place. And you know, let's let's let's fight back. And we're doing it. We really are. We're winning. It's going to take a while. And Cody, I was going to say for your listeners, compliance is not rocket science. Compliance, which are issued by the OIG guidelines. It's basically having policies and procedures in place, right? Setting a vision, a culture of what you want your company to be, right? And pass that vision. That's those standards, all of that auditing and monitoring, training your nurses, training your employees. It's basically what you do every day. You have to document it and implement it through all the organization. The compliance program so that doctors are not scared. It's it's in there to find mistakes. That's what the compliance is all about. If if nobody makes any mistake, then you don't need any compliance program. So, it's always evolving and you will find that they made mistakes. What the government is looking for and what we want as attorneys is for you to respond in case there's a violation. Right? A nurse took a a legal prescription pad of the doctor. Hey, you have to fire that nurse. So, so compliance is not that complicated. I don't want physicians to be afraid of compliance. It's that you have to be aware your administrator supervised oversight, your billing, your records. So, it's something that you basically have to do to run a clinic, but that you have to document and pass that information, that training, that auditing, how to do it to your employees and your patient. Yep. No, that's that's absolutely right. Compliance is key. Well, listen, Claudia, thank you so much for joining us uh on this call, for talking to us about uh about your constituents, about Outro pain patients, and giving us their perspective. Um, when's the next rally scheduled? October 7th. Great. So, we're gonna try and have, believe it or not, this time we're gonna try and have lawyers at the rallies. Um, there's going to be a lot of doctors at the, you know, in Miami, I think we're rallying at the uh, DEA headquarters in Weston. Yeah. No, I got it. I got it. Yeah. And we just, you know, sometimes the rallies only have a very, you know, some rallies have 10 people, some rallies have 60. These are sick people. So, a lot of them have rare diseases, they're in wheelchairs. So, you know, if you need an advocate, you can find one at the doctor patient form. And if you just want to get out there to be seen, be heard, whether it's, you know, the doctors, the patients together. Um, you know, visit us on Facebook at Don't Punish Pain Rally. you'll see my face like once a month coming on and you know I got to keep people motivated and I do what I can. Well, Claudia, we we'd love to have a number of attorneys at quite a few of those rallies wherever we may be able to get people out there. So, bring a few extra microphones for us or bullhorns and we'll we'll we'll we'll help out with the rallying. In the meantime, we'll keep trying to win for those physicians and keep trying to keep them compliant. Again, thank you so much for uh for all of your time today. Thank you for everything that you do. Thank you for helping pain patients. Thank you for connecting with doctors. Just thank you for all of it. You're a very powerful voice in the community. And uh we're so grateful uh that that that doctors have you, that pain patients have you, and that and that you're out there doing what you do. So, thank you. All right. Thanks, guys. Everybody stay healthy. All right., How the DOJ Affects Doctors AND Patients, with Claudia Merandi: Health Care Hot Topics, Health Care, Criminal Law, 2020
  • Types of Healthcare Fraud accused of health care fraud by the federal government one of the ways is over billing for services that are rendered to Medicare Medicaid TRICARE or private insurance companies another way would be receiving a kickback or some sort of bribe in exchange for referring people to a federal health care program in addition you can also commit commit health care fraud by performing medically unnecessary services that shouldn't have been performed in the first place or were performed in a way that weren't medically necessary or appropriate the federal statutes in this arena and regulations are broad CMS guidelines which are used to determine whether or not healthcare fraud was committed number and the hundreds of thousands of pages and it's nearly impossible for a physician to comply with every single one of them the only solution is to have a robust compliance program available at your practice in Compliance Programs Crucial order to ensure that you're complying with guidelines but what happens if you didn't have one in place what happens if you've been billing a certain way and you realize that it might have been a mistake or you're performing a service in a way that might be in violation of guidelines call Chapman Law Group today our attorneys will perform an in-depth investigation to understand the scope of the problem get out in front of the problem potentially report and pay back some small fine as opposed to receiving a federal indictment for health care fraud now if it's too late and you're already facing government scrutiny for Minimize The Risks health care fraud there are certain things that you can do in order to minimize the risk to your practice and keep yourself out of jail the first thing is to contact a talented health care fraud attorney immediately our health care fraud team will show up interview everybody at the practice develop as much good evidence as possible and defend the decision making at your practice before the government even engages in scrutiny if you find yourself the subject of a federal indictment for health care fraud we do What If You Face Indictment really good work in minimizing the loss amount which is the main driver of prison time and health care fraud and in many cases defending you at trial in order to keep yourself out of jail and keep the other people in your practice out of jail health care fraud is a very complex topic and it's not something Experts in Healthcare Fraud that should be handled by attorneys who don't know much health care fraud you need to contact attorneys who have advanced degrees in health care law attorneys who have experienced trying health care cases attorneys who've been at the defense table on the other side of the prosecution before and have actually won that's what Chapman Law Group brings to the table for you your practice and for your future to keep you out of trouble if you're facing health care fraud charges or your concerns you may not be in compliance with federal guidelines contact us today., Health Care Fraud 101, Health Care, Criminal Law, 2020
  • Covid Affecting Healthcare good afternoon everybody and thank you so much for joining in to Chapman law group healthcare hot topics I know what the corona virus scare going around in certain restrictions and things that are happening I know that a lot of our practitioner clients are being overwhelmed with patients with concerns with questions and you may not have the answers so we put together a pretty substantial roundtable to try and discuss some with them we have Ron Chapman the second who heads our criminal division and also has an LLM from Lille in healthcare law we have Aaron Kemp who heads our regulatory division regulatory covers licensing credentialing peer review all of those types of things and then we have under in Parata who is also in our compliance has spent many years in compliance and my name is Ron Chapman I also have an LLM from Loyola and spent 35 years in healthcare so welcome gentlemen look I think one of the concerns that we want to talk about today is there was this emergency declaration by the president I know that CMS has issued a number of guideline changes so why don't we talk about those and also know from personal experience my daughter owns a healthcare clinic and there were a lot of concerns about who to test who not to test hospitals turning people away I'm not testing them those types of things so open it up to some comments and let's just generally talk about issues that might relate to practitioners Hospitals and EMTALA well I think first and foremost we have EMTALA out there which set certain conditions on hospitals and requires them to treat patients when they arrive at the hospital to some extent and I think it's going to be very interesting to see how the government navigates the requirements of EMTALA with a corresponding fill in critical care bed space that I think the government is anticipating at this point in time does anybody have any thoughts on how providers can do when faced with EMTALA in this situation well I think when faced with EMTALA they simply can't turn anybody away that's an emergent condition that question will be severely tested when bed space fills up and you have no space which is one of the exceptions to EMTALA but then you have to find another place to send them and we'll have to see I mean one of the differences here then and maybe in Italy one of our associates has family in Italy it is from Italy and she was telling me this morning that one of the major problems is they're running out of ventilators or they're running out of bed space and things but it at least a smaller country with probably less medical capacity than we have so this would be a good test of our capacity to to handle those critical care when it comes to practitioners of course EMTALA doesn't apply to urgent cares in family practice centers and I think there potentially being overrun at least with demands for testing along Telehealth Restrictions Loosened those same along that same token Ron in the aspect not necessarily an emergency medicine Avenue but a primary care the burdens that primary care providers that you initially initially discuss are under part of the emergency declaration was some of the lessening of the restrictions on telemedicine and telehealth a particular interest is for the older population who feels potentially that they want to get tested but they don't want to go into their clinic or their primary care providers office because of the risk of potentially contracting the virus so cm luckily has at least my understanding so far the emergency declaration has loosened some of the restrictions on telehealth medicine the important one of the important factors in reading some of the loosening of the string so to speak is that the physician had to have had in the past three years a previous incident with that same patient an order for this to qualify for reimbursement for the provider previously if the restrictions had been currently placed without the emergency declaration telehealth medicine and reimbursement under Medicare is is fairly limited it applies specifically to instances where the patient has to go to the facility that's located for example in a rural health clinic that requirement has now been waived but there are other restrictions mainly the physician had to have had an E&M visit with a particular patient over the last three years but there's another specific wrinkle where a new Medicare patient is the way I read in the way I've understood it so far that they are not eligible for this telehealth benefit at least at least with regard to the physician performing a telehealth episode and then seeking reimbursement from Medicare I bring that up because obviously this is appearing to affect older populations but to this example say someone just got on Medicare this year there's 64 last year now 65 medicare eligible those new Medicare patients to me are still not under this they don't fall under this waiver but certainly I do feel that this is just the beginning though because telehealth is going to be of critical importance for people who want to contact their primary care provider address any specific symptoms they may feel or may feel that are being approaching to them and it's a way for them to keep their safe distance but also receiving the Medicare the medical care that they need but also from the providers perspective our clients we want to ensure that they're getting paid at reverse for those services that are being rendered so some strings have been loosened I would anticipate some additional waivers to be granted to really ramp up the telehealth capacity for for both providers and patients who are seeking Telehealth Scams services I think it's important for our viewers to also know that the federal government wave for medicare/medicaid other government services TRICARE chips things like that but they can't wave for traditional state requirements in most states for example Florida and this bothers me a great deal would tell up health because I think well it's the wave of the future I think there's huge problems now a Florida in Michigan for example you still have to comply with the standard of care so I'm wondering when a patient calls and says hey I think I might have the coronavirus I'm a little short of breath what are you gonna do you can't auscultate the person's chest you can't take a blood pressure so I don't know what kind of service you can provide I think this also leaves and maybe right you could address this a huge opportunity for scammers to start coming in opening up these very quick telehealth and you're really not getting telehealth and maybe you're being placed on a false belief that you're okay when maybe you're not so I I know the scammers will start coming out of the woodwork here I think from a practical standpoint for physicians and providers telehealth can be a valuable tool to monitor symptoms of those people infected with the corona virus who don't require emergency treatment and to make the call to determine whether or not they may be a candidate based on their symptoms for at least an office visit checkup so it'll be a nice gateway to treatment to ensure that people's symptoms are being monitored but then from from the the scam artists perspective I'm sure that we're going to start seeing instances where people are taking advantage of some of the the waivers and rule changes that are in place for financial gain I'm sure that we're probably going to see some fake testing out there we may even see some some clinics over billing for treatment because the federal government's going to be backlogged than these types of claims that probably approve you know all of the claims and let them go through I think will be sorting out a lot of fraud for the next maybe year or a few years to come based on coronavirus so now the important thing to remember from the fraud standpoint the anti-fraud standpoint is document document document if you're testing coronavirus more than all of your peers and you have a South Florida clinic rest assured that at some point government investigators may start looking at the reason why you had you know hundreds or thousands more tests than than your peers and they may target you for an investigation without proper documentation of the medical necessity for the treatment and the testing you may be via candidate for at least a recruitment or potentially fraud allegations right you you raised a good Follow-Ups And Billing point there for follow-up treatment Andre maybe you can comment on this as well and that is so you've seen a patient patient has you know coronavirus they're not extreme they go home to basically self quarantine and now you want to check up on them every two days or so and talk to them to find out other symptoms I'm wondering if there would be appropriately billed as a 99212 and if you could get away with it even though there's not an office visit particularly since office visits would be some you know seriously frowned upon if you have a cold in nineteen tested positive patient coming in and sitting in the waiting room with others that may not have Co mid-nineteen yeah it's a great question I'm not sure if there's a definitive answer at this point regarding potentially billing for those subsequent call ups and as an emmc because of the very fact that you mentioned Ron it requires an in-office visit and this is being done remotely via telecommunications but certainly took two to run seconds of point about documentation it's going to become critical it already is of course under normal circumstances but under these circumstances of course it's going to become critical to document everything that's being done so your specific question Ron about whether the post after initial consultation via telehealth if subsequent follow-ups can be billed you know I would recommend content to your health law attorney to navigate those those uncharted waters but certainly they're over document if any if any provider is worried about potentially billing and seeking reimbursement for this over document and meticulously document the services that they aren't providing but as far as billing those those EMM services via the follow up cause I think at this point it would be premature to advise anybody that they do so well that's true but I also think that we have practitioners are going to spend I'm on the phone talking to people so I think some good advice a correct me if I run gentlemen if you think I'm incorrect is that you document that just like an office visit you try to address the system you know the review of systems you can even if it's just communicating to them are you still short of breath you know you have a sore throat these types of things and then you know document the medical decision making that you have to make and they could be take more fluids do this take some over-the-counter pain medication you know all of those kinds of things and then accumulate that and then maybe we can bill it and we'll see you know one of the things the government did for labs is they created a brand new kovin 19 billing so they now bill under you two to four users or two they did the same thing for SARS a while back and that was user on zero one and they'll get immediate reimbursement so I think there will have to be and maybe we can be a significant voice for those practitioners allow me for them if they keep the documentation and document the medical necessity because I suspect they certainly should be paid by private carriers and government carriers I would have heard that I agree with everything that you've said and and I'd like to everybody's point that we're making is the documentation is gonna be critical because run to your son's point in the event that you're treating and billing for services related to corona virus treatment or assessments and you're way above the the means so to speak compared to your competitors there will be on it at some point so the documentation becomes critical I think one of the Practicing in Other States points being raised is when there's an emergency that doesn't mean you can through everything you learned out the window you still have to have medical necessity you still have to have proper examinations it's just that some of the things I'm sure will be loosened and one of those things I know under the CMS guidelines they waive the requirement that you be licensed in the state that you provide Medicare and Medicaid Services and any of us can address that I think one of the problems might be though lice singing of physicians is a state function not a federal function so while they might be able to say that I'm not so sure they could allow an Ohio physician to walk into Michigan or a Georgia physician to walk into Florida there yeah it's probably an attractive proposition for a physician is licensed in multiple states to have the ability to not only expand from the state where as primary practices to an adjoining state perhaps and offer a media of Medicare care but it doesn't mean that someone who isn't licensed in that state can expect to walk in that state obtain Medicare provider ship and then expect to perform care without being properly licensed now states may provide waivers you know very shortly to encourage medical care but none of that's happened so far at least here in Michigan I'm sure not in Florida Erin do you think that that the emergency declaration and CMS waivers are going to be a signal to those states to start bringing up licensure requirements do you expect that on the horizon I expect that absolutely it seems like they're lagging a bit behind CMS the governor here in Michigan she signed a declaration expanding tela-health access last week however we haven't seen any regulations or any emergency declaration like CMS so I think that's on the rise and very shortly but they're just lagging behind and I know for example some states you know very strongly some more than others regulate the practice within their own states and you know I suspect you have a lot of doctors vacationing in Florida I don't think all of a sudden they could start practicing medicine in Florida on the private population they may be able to get a waiver for Medicare Medicaid but Access to Healthcare correct me if I'm wrong gentlemen but I don't see a shortage of healthcare providers I'm not hearing that in the news I did some searching today I'm not seeing where there's a shortage of access to care I see the concern there maybe Act maybe an access problem to ventilators in acute care and I see you type care but I don't know you know with with urgent cares and other things that are gonna come I'm not sure about that I really you see anything relating to that well we're hearing a lot of reports and I think a lot of this stem from news that was coming from Italy that the health care providers were being overworked I've had the opportunity to speak with a number of health care providers in Michigan and in other states since that news broke out to see what they're doing and we are seeing our hospitals local hospitals lean forward and try to do things to mitigate this this potential overflow issue by creating more bed space so I think that's causing a bit of a drain on the current healthcare environment you have people who need to take care of sick patients already because hospitals typically don't over staff in fact they routinely under staff with this added drain of the additional coronavirus patients and work that's required to be done before we get a larger number of patients filtering into these hospitals so I don't know that we'll have a shortage of doctors I actually think that the the issue will be a shortage of mid levels a shortage of nurses and nursing homes a shortage of certified nursing assistants and other non physician employees to be able to help because you know I mean the the practical issue is at play we have many of the nation's parents having to stay home and watch kids because they're out of school who's gonna go and staff some of those positions and I think that's going to be very complicated for us so I guess to answer your question Ron I think maybe not as much of a shortage of physicians but we really should be worried about a shortage of the additional type of medical services that Patient Treatment Refusal? we require let me throw in another question can a health care provider if their concern refused to treat patients that they feel might have koban 19:00 let's say they they you know they're a little concerned and they don't want to open their clinic to that type of thing I've heard of people doing that what do you think you get into some regulatory compliance issues to if you're a Medicare and rold provider and turning away patients for example if their Medicare beneficiary you get into some compliance or regulatory issues they're about not you know having the blanket requirement to accept Medicare patients that doesn't necessarily mean that you have to accept every single one who walks into your door you can make an argument essentially that on a case case basis yes but the whole point of being a medical provider is to treat people who need medical care and so if you're concerned that the exposure you're going to get from Koba 19 in your medical writer perhaps you've entered the long wrong line of work I mean that defeats the purpose of being a provider certainly the worries are valid and concern but I think protective measures need to be in place for those types of providers and you do get into at least from Medicare perspective considering types of patients who are typically seen in this for this particular virus if you're choosing not to treat them you know you run the risk of running afoul of very serious Medicare regulations especially during rolling Medicare Protective Measures at Clinics provider which kind of brings up another question what should our you know owners of our clinics do for their employees what type of perfective equipment protective equipment should be required of them I don't think they can walk around all day in you know zombie suits so to speak with you know big hood masks and ventilators and things but certainly something ought to happen it's a little different than the flu virus right yeah well I think that one thing that can be done and this may be a bit more of a medical question and a legal question is we're seeing the use of drive-thru clinics and testing facilities I think the biggest need right now is to make sure that we can take care of that potential 20% that need hospitalization and the rest just get them tested so for the regular doctor's office I'm not so sure there's as much of a need to have patients sitting down in the office being examined by a medical provider I think they drive through tests and maybe telehealth can can take care of that patient population without in office visits and those people that require more urgent for emergent side care can go directly to the hospital but maybe there is a middle-of-the-road sickness that may require examination by a PCP I just don't think we've seen that yet what are the other issues that CMS Medicare Exclusions in Covid raised or one of the waivers is for provider enrollment they said specifically that application fees criminal background checks site visits all of which be waived for physicians and non-physicians practitioners that want to enroll in Medicare in CMS Medicare Medicaid what types of advice will we give them because I think certainly if you've been excluded if you have you know a felony or some other kind of excluded thing even though you might get it by now what if you do that and then later on it's found out what about all the claims you're you're finally now I think it might be false claims there's the potential for a false claim Act violation certainly I we are without revealing client got we we have certain clients into those positions so to speak that are under an enrollment bar let's say for Medicare we are certainly currently seeking waivers with regard to their ability to treat Medicare patients but the waiver would apply specifically to billing Medicare for these treatments only so in other words it's not carte blanche so to speak you get a waiver and you can start treating Medicare patients for other for other conditions and other ailments unrelated to the co19 which is the genesis of course of this whole emergency declaration and these subsequent waivers that are being issued but it's certainly an option to explore of course because back to your original question of the potential shortage and I agree with with what everyone has said I don't think necessarily we're seeing a shortage of providers of course the space the equipment is good at the greater concern the governor of New York I think is it vote is calling - it's asking the Army Corps of Engineers to build these makes apostles like I think they did in China but back to the original point of excluded providers it obviously everything here is uncharted waters but certainly that is an option we are pursuing for some of our clients regarding waivers for clients that are not disbarred or under enrollment bar or excluded for purposes of like patient neglect or abuse or a fraudulent scheme they had another criminal matter that's totally unrelated to their ability to practice or their treatment of individuals certainly that's an avenue to explore and I think CNS CMS would be open to that of course I think they're going to do to keep those on a case-by-case basis whether or not to grant waivers so with the advice we give then is that any practitioners that of our clients or potential clients that they should call us or some other competent healthcare providers of course we prefer that they call us and then we would walk them through that waiver because I think getting a waiver when you're not entitled to a waiver sets you up for some pretty serious prosecution Covid-Based Prosecutions, Investigations and my belief is when this is all over two months from now two weeks from now six months from now whatever I suspect there will be a lot of prosecutions because bad things like this when money starts flowing very easily people start figuring out ways to to tap into that and get some of that money yeah and you know the False Claims Act was created because of the Civil War and contractors taking advantage of the state the country was and at that time and I think that that's one of the first things that the federal government will look at and I'm sure that we will see investigations and likely prosecutions so it's important for for everybody to see these waivers and that's opening up of the regulatory system as not something to be taken advantage of but an area to tread very carefully on because if you run afoul of even these waivers you could be hit with some sort of scrutiny from the federal government well it may just be an odd is it very well could be a federal investigation which which is our concern and many of the waivers that came down so not necessarily our specialty within health care but came down for acute bed hospital psychiatric facilities nursing homes had some significant waivers one of which is basically lockdown and the other was allowing them to I guess perform other types of procedures in their setting that otherwise they wouldn't be able to anybody have any other comments that they'd like to make I know this is a little brief and maybe we'll do these every couple days to let people know some things it's kind of a moving target and we don't always know where it's going courts are starting to Trials Limited, Suspended close down and over on you work a lot in white-collar positions that are charged with false claims over prescribing opiates those types of things what are the courts doing these days well so we're seeing a smattering of resolutions from the districts we've noticed in Kentucky they were the first to act Kentucky suspended all hearings for 30 days we've seen something come out of the Eastern District of Michigan that was very similar I had a conversation with a federal judge not too long ago who indicated that the circuits were meeting in order to find a resolution I imagine the circuit Supreme Court judges there's a Justice assigned to every circuit of the Supreme Court that they're going to be making the call for their circuits as to as to what to do with with current federal cases that being said from a more practical standpoint I have a feeling that jury trials will likely not go for the foreseeable future because getting 75 to 100 people together in a jury pool could be a very serious danger so I would expect to see suspension of jury trial soon rania saw that in florida where the Supreme Court suspended all jury trials for a certain period of time and I think that we'll see the same thing the wheels of justice won't call I think they're going to take a pause and then when the peak starts to clear that will be one of the first things that needs to be resumed because it is a constitutional requirement I did File Dates, CMS Appeals see on a good note you know Andre helps us with this we have other people on our staff they do we do a lot of CMS Appeals for overpayments etc and they did indicate in part of CMS recent emergency guidelines that they are extending the file dates for appeals for responses but I don't believe in Andre correct me if you feel differently I don't think this car wash for our providers just to disregard those dates I think they still need to get to Council as fast as they can but I think in many respects those dates can be extended and if you've missed a deadline I think you just need to get to your console and I would bet there's a very very strong probability that that deadline would be extended under these extenuating services I think a lot of our providers have more important things to do treating their population than gathering records and making sure that Medicare has all the things but I don't think they should stop what do you think Andre yeah correct I mean I would I still operate on the assumption that the deadline is indicated in your notice notification letters from CMS are still in effect I think there has been I'm not sure the game whether it's vinick's by 30 or 60 potentially to 90 days we are currently working with clients that are under investigation and we're complying with all the deadlines made but CMS understands the the situation and is willing to work with them to your point obviously takes valuable resources in time by the providers mid-level providers even staff to compile these records that send them out so if you work with CMS consult your legal counsel and work with CMS because they have been very workable in terms of extending these these guidelines regarding those types of Appeals but certainly we're still operating unless directly told otherwise that the timelines indicated on your notification levels letters from CMS are still in effect unless specifically notified the contrary anybody else have anything that they would like to add you know just do I Outro think just a rental thought you know I'm sure that the next few months are going to be trying for the healthcare system in general and and just for those health care professionals that are watching this just want to say thank you for all that you've already done and for the tough times that you're about to go through and experiencing this virus the impacts of it and sacrificing time away from your family and loved ones in order to help people you don't know it oftentimes is a thankless service and I just want to say thank you to all healthcare providers out there and to let you know that whatever you need from us will be here where a phone call away so I'll ban sir your questions to work through some of these compliance issues and make sure that you stay on the right side of the money exactly right go ahead Andre I echo those comments I mean the health care providers from the physicians to the mid-level providers we discussed earlier to the nurses everybody's on the front lines and kudos to them you guys are doing this battle and to Ron's point as well let us handle any of the regulatory compliance and other legal issues you guys are certainly going to be under during these times we'll handle that to relieve that stress that you guys are always under but certainly you know you guys because we're heroes fighting on the front lines we can't thank you know well thank you everybody in to echo what everybody else has said that chatter Law Group is here to help we have 17 attorneys that are highly skilled in health care that's all that we do and we're here to help you call anyone of the P well here you call Eric M who's in charge of our regulatory or any member of his team Andre who one of the lead attorneys in our compliance run who is in charge of our white collar or myself for civil litigation or compliance related matters we're here to help you we'll be keeping you abreast as things happen we know it's happening very quickly but I like to think gentlemen all of you Ron Erin and Andre for taking the time to be here with us today and I'm sure we'll get back to everybody the next 48 hours and see what happens be safe and take care., How COVID-19 Measures Could Effect Physicians: Health Care Hot Topics, Health Care, 2020

Educational Background

  • Oakland University, B.A., 2006
  • Naval Justice School, 2010

Scholarly Lectures / Writings

  • Panel discussion surrounding the issue of whether physicians can be convicted for unlawful distribution of Controlled Substances if they believe the drugs they prescribed were prescribed under professional norms., Panelist, Panel Discussion: Xiulu Ruan v. United States of America, American Conference Institute, 2022
  • Letter to the Editor About How the Outcome of Ruan v. United States Will Affect Prescribers., Co-Author, How the U.S. Supreme Court is About to Affect Every Prescriber in America, Journal of Opioid Management 18:3, 2022
  • Presentation at FPA's Annual Law Conference about to handle State and DEA inspections., Presenter, How to Prepare and Respond to State and DEA Inspections and Medicaid Audits, Florida Pharmacy Association, 2021
  • Building, Maintaining, and Evolving in a Highly Regulated Area, Presenter, Building an Ironclad Compliance Program, American Conference Institute, 2021
  • Discuss of Why Prosecutors Choose the Health Care Fraud Statue Again and Again, Presenter, Health Care Fraud Statue vs. False Claims Act, National Alliance of Medical Auditing Specialists, 2021
  • Discussion of pandemic lessons learned in 2020 and provide the practical guidance providers need to move forward. Examine major issues such as the explosion of telemedicine and the latest in hospital mergers and acquisitions (M&As). Dive into cybersecurity and remote practice implications. Plus, get updates on state and federal regulations, fraud and abuse, and Stark., Presenter, Current Trends in Health Care Fraud & Abuse Enforcement, Institute of Continuing Legal Education - Health Law Institute, 2021
  • Tailoring inspection strategies for every link of the supply chain., Presenter, DEA Site Visit Checklist, American Conference Institute, 2020
  • Building and Enhancing an Effective Controlled Substances Compliance Program, Presenter, Compliance Think Tank, American Conference Institute, 2020
  • Introduction to the Fundamentals of Prescribing Controlled Substances., Presenter, Controlled Substances Bootcamp, American Conference Institute, 2018
  • Discussion of Brest Practices, Guidelines, and Regulations., Presenter, Principles for Safe Opioid Prescribing, Michigan State Medical Society, 2017
  • CME Webinar., Presenter, Protect Yourself and Your License: DEA Compliance and Opioid Abuse, Urgent Care Association of America, 2017
  • Author, Defending Hippocrates: Representing Physicians in the Wake of the Opioid Epidemic, National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers’ The Champion, 2017
  • Preparing for and Defending Regulatory Investigations, Michigan Medical Society Spring Conference, 2016
  • Criminal Accusations Cause Health Care Professionals to Face Potentially Debilitating Collateral Consequences, State Appellate Defender Office, Criminal Defense Newsletter, Health Care Law, 2016
  • Interviewee, DEA Is Cracking Down On Physicians Who Overprescribe Pills, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Health Care, 2016
  • Evidence-Based Best Practice for Opioid Prescribing and Monitoring: Medicolegal Pain Management Expert Symposium, International Conference on Opioids, Journal of Opioid Management, Harvard Medical Conference Center, 2016
  • Physician’s Guide to DEA Administrative Inspections, Pain Medicine News, 2016
  • The Black Cloud of a Medical Board Investigation, Medscape, 2015
  • Responsible Opioid Prescribing and Monitoring for Pain Management: Evidence-Based Best Practice, Michigan State Medical Society’s 150th Annual Scientific Meeting, 2015
  • The shifting sands of opioid prescription here in the US and around the globe combined with the pandemic have made it challenging to plan our next conference. That said, we appreciate the daily calls to our office inquiring about this conference. The support is gratifying and it confirms there is definite need for a serious conference on opioids. We need your help. Please take a couple of minutes and jot down three items. First, what concept, skill or theme would you like us to focus our next conference on? Second, where do you see the field of opioid prescription in the next 5 years? Third, would you be interested in joining a conference committee to bring forth the next event?  Please send your notes to the Journal of Opioid Management e-mail box at jom (at) pnpco (dot) com.  Your input is critical and thank you for your dedication., When Prescribing Controlled Substances Becomes Drug Trafficking, Pain Medicine News, Consulting, Therapy, Policy, 2015
  • Top 10 Tips for Physician to Avoid Prosecution for Over Prescribing, AVVO, 2015

Other Outstanding Achievements

  • Navy Achievement Medal
  • Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal

Honors

  • Michigan Rising Star in the area of Health Law, Rising Star - Health Law, Super Lawyers, 2022
  • Michigan Rising Star in the area of Health Law, Rising Star - Health Law, Super Lawyers, 2020
  • Michigan Rising Star in the area of Health Law, Rising Star - Health Law, Super Lawyers, 2021
  • Up & Coming Lawyers, Michigan Lawyers Weekly, 2015
  • Top 10 Criminal Defense Attorney Under 40, National Academy of Criminal Defense Attorneys, 2015
  • Navy Achievement Medal, U.S. Marine Corps, 2013: Ron was awarded the navy achievement medal for his work as an operational law officer for II MEF the expeditionary force occupying the east coast of the U.S. Ron worked on high level Federal investigations, coordinated closely with ICE, NCIS, the FBI, and various narcotics units. Additionally, Ron created a course designed to instruct other Marine Officers regarding operational law issues prior to deployment to Afghanistan and Iraq. 
  • Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal, U.S. Marine Corps, 2012: Ron was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps commendation medal for his work in Afghanistan as a battalion judge advocate working with Marines during a highly kinetic counter insurgency campaign. Ron also was the officer in charge of a detention facility that housed suspected insurgents.

Industry Groups

  • All Health Care Professionals:
  • Ambulatory Surgical Centers
  • Chiropractors
  • Correctional Healthcare Providers
  • Dentists
  • Health Care Facilities
  • Home Health Agencies
  • Hospitals
  • Mental Health Professionals
  • Nurses
  • Ophthalmologists
  • Optometrists
  • Pain Clinics
  • Pharmacies
  • Pharmacists
  • Physicians
  • Professional Liability Insurers
  • Skilled Nursing Facilities
  • Veterinarians

Office location for Ronald W. Chapman, II

456 E Milwaukee St
Detroit, MI 48202

Selections

3 Years Super Lawyers
9 Years Rising Stars
  • Super Lawyers: 2024 - 2026
  • Rising Stars: 2015 - 2023

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