A former doctor and her wife pleaded guilty to crimes involving the medical practice they ran in north Alabama for many years. Francene Aretha Gayle, 50, of Apopka, Florida, pleaded guilty to five counts of unlawful drug distribution, one count of healthcare fraud conspiracy, and one count of wire fraud conspiracy. Gayle’s wife, Schara Monique Davis, 48, also of Apopka, pleaded guilty to one count of healthcare fraud conspiracy and one count of wire fraud conspiracy. According to the defendants’ plea agreements, between about 2014 and early 2020, Gayle was a doctor who operated a multi-clinic practice in Huntsville, Athens, and Killen. Davis owned the practice and served as business manager. In 2019, the Killen clinic shut down. In March 2020, the Alabama Medical Licensure Commission revoked Gayle’s license, and the other two clinics closed shortly after that. Gayle admitted that she had unlawfully distributed drugs, including oxycodone, hydrocodone, and methadone.
Gayle and Davis both admitted to having conspired to commit healthcare fraud for several years by billing insurers for office visits under Gayle’s name even when she did not see the patients, was not in the same building, and sometimes was not in the same town. The defendants knew that the billing scheme was fraudulent. In 2015, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama audited the practice and discovered that Gayle was absent, other staff were seeing patients, and yet all office visits were being billed under Gayle’s name. Blue Cross flagged the issue, and Gayle promised it would stop. Instead, the practice continued fraudulently billing insurers for office visits for the next four years. In total, between 2015 and 2020, Medicare, Medicaid, and Blue Cross paid more than $2.3 million for office visits billed under Gayle’s name.
