The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced seven individuals were indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and multiple counts of healthcare fraud. According to United States Attorney Gerard M. Karam, the indictment alleges that between 2019 and 2020, the seven defendants conspired to commit healthcare fraud through an arrangement designed to bill individuals’ health insurances for medically unnecessary prescription drug combinations known as “foot baths.” Foot baths were purported to be an antibiotic and antifungal “foot soak” treatment that patients were supposed to mix together and dissolve in a warm water solution, using a plastic foot tub that was sometimes shipped to them. The combinations of prescription drugs contained in foot baths varied over time, but they generally included high-cost drugs that were not intended for or approved for use in a foot bath, including vancomycin capsules, tobramycin vials, calcipotriene cream, moxifloxacin eye drops, clindamycin phosphate solution, and ketoconazole cream.
