Dr. Charles Mok, 56, of Washington, Michigan, was charged in a criminal complaint for his alleged role in a healthcare fraud scheme which involved submitting false claims to Medicare for services that were never rendered and/or were medically unnecessary. The complaint alleges Dr. Mok submitted false and fraudulent claims to Medicare for treatment of varicose veins by submitting claims for injections of Varithena in veins which had previously been ablated. The complaint alleges that once an ablation is done on a patient, there is no need for additional treatments including a Varithena injection. The complaint also alleges that some of the procedures were also medically unnecessary as numerous patients received up to 19 Varithena injections per leg and/or up to 12 ablations per leg, well beyond what is medically necessary to treat their conditions. The complaint further alleges that Dr. Mok submitted false and fraudulent claims to Medicare for high-dose intravenous vitamin C infusions to patients at risk of contracting COVID-19, especially those working on the frontlines, and to those who tested positive for COVID-19. While the office had standard protocols to isolate patients who were positive for COVID-19, the complaint alleges that those protocols were not strictly followed, and on numerous occasions, COVID-19 positive patients were comingled with healthy patients, including those scheduled for non-essential elective procedures, in one waiting room. In multiple launch videos, Dr. Mok claimed that Allure offered the infusions because vitamin C reduces the severity of symptoms, duration of illness, and therefore the contagiousness of COVID-19 and significantly increases the immunity system of those who have a high risk for contracting the virus.
