Following a five-day trial, a physician’s assistant who injected amniotic fluid into patients’ joints in a dubious attempt at pain management has been convicted of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and 12 counts of healthcare fraud. On Monday, after less than one hour of deliberation, a jury convicted Ray Anthony Shoulders, a 36-year-old physician’s assistant at a Fort Worth pain management clinic, on all counts. He will be sentenced at a later date. According to evidence presented at trial, Mr. Shoulders and his conspirators submitted $788,000 in fraudulent claims and received more than $614,000 in reimbursements from Medicare for injecting amniotic fluid — the liquid that surrounds a growing fetus during gestation — into patients’ connective tissue in an off-label attempt to relieve joint pain. Certain amniotic products have been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for wound care, but not for pain management. (In fact, the FDA has issued repeated consumer alerts warning that biologics like amniotic fluid “have not been approved for the treatment of any orthopedic condition, such as osteoarthritis, tendonitis, disc disease, tennis elbow, back pain, hip pain, knee pain, neck pain, or shoulder pain,” nor for “chronic pain or fatigue.”) Because amniotic products have not been approved to treat pain, Medicare considers amniotic injections administered to treat pain medically unnecessary and does not reimburse for them.
