On October 25, 2022, Melvin Lee Robison, 68, of Lake City, Colorado, was sentenced to serve 54 months in federal prison for illegal drug distribution and healthcare fraud. On June 20, 2018, a federal grand jury returned a 159-count indictment against Robison, who during the relevant time period ran the Robison Family Clinic in Sayre, Oklahoma. Robison was charged with numerous counts of drug distribution—specifically, dispensing opioids and other drugs outside the usual course of professional practice and not for a legitimate medical purpose—along with multiple counts of Medicare/Medicaid fraud based on, among other things, services he billed for while out of the country and services he billed for related to care of patients in nursing homes without performing the services or supervising those who provided them.
On December 19, 2019, a superseding indictment was filed, charging Robison with five additional counts. During the pendency of Robison’s prosecution on these drug and healthcare fraud charges, he was also charged in the Southern District of Florida on June 11, 2021, with one count of conspiracy to pay healthcare kickbacks. Dr. Robison was ordered to serve a 54-month sentence on his two Oklahoma-based charges, and another 24 months on his Florida case, to be run concurrent to his Oklahoma sentences. He was also ordered to pay a fine of $13,362.00, to pay restitution of $112,384.61 to the Centers of Medicare & Medicaid Services, and to forfeit $202,597.18.
