A Mobile-area Alabama doctor was indicted in a long-running investigation into a prescription drug-billing scheme involving a Haleyville, Ala.-based pharmacy, Northside Pharmacy doing business as Global Compounding Pharmacy. An 11-count indictment charges Dr. Michelle Martine Jackson, 53, of Fairhope, Alabama, with a conspiracy to receive kickbacks, a conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and mail fraud, healthcare fraud, and aggravated identity theft. According to the indictment, Dr. Jackson, who worked out of two clinics in Mobile, Alabama, received kickbacks in exchange for issuing medically unnecessary compounded drug and other prescriptions to be filled by Global Compounding Pharmacy. Dr. Jackson issued medically unnecessary prescriptions to a Global employee Bonita Amonett, and her family and friends, to individuals with whom Jackson did not have a doctor-patient relationship, and to individuals with whom she had a doctor-patient relationship, but who did not need the drugs in question. Ms. Amonett paid the kickbacks in the form of cash and free offices services to Dr. Jackson and a nurse practitioner, Brandy Lunsford. According to court documents, both Ms. Amonett and Ms. Lunsford previously entered guilty pleas to paying and receiving kickbacks and healthcare fraud.
