Comprehensive Pain Specialists Settle Fraud Allegations for $4.1 Million
Acting U.S. Attorney Mary Jane Stewart and Tennessee Attorney General Herbert H. Slatery III announced today they have entered into agreements with Anesthesia Services Associates, PLLC d/b/a Comprehensive Pain Specialists (“CPS”), its four majority owners, Dr. Peter B. Kroll, Dr. Steven R. Dickerson, Dr. Gilberto A. Carrero, and Dr. Richard J. Muench (collectively, the “Owners”), and Russell S. Smith, D.C. – a former CPS executive – whereby they agreed to pay a total of $4,121,663.94 to settle all claims by the United States and Tennessee involving allegations of wrongdoing at CPS.
CPS, which was based in Brentwood, at one point operated over 40 pain clinics including in Oak Ridge and Athens, Tennessee and had operations in 12 states, until it shut down in 2018. On July 22, 2019, the United States and Tennessee filed a Consolidated Complaint in Intervention in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee against CPS, its former CEO, John Davis, who was convicted in April 2019 of health care fraud, as well as three of the four principal Owners, Drs. Kroll, Dickerson, and Carrero, and, Dr. Smith, a former manager of certain CPS clinics in East Tennessee (the “Civil Action”). The Complaint alleged, among other things, that the defendants submitted false claims for medically unnecessary and/or non-reimbursable testing and acupuncture. Dr. Muench, the only owner not a party to the lawsuit, agreed to settle with the United States and Tennessee prior to the filing of the complaint.
