FBI affidavit: Kennebunk doctor charged with overprescribing opioids put patients' lives at risk

KENNEBUNK, Maine — Walmart prohibited its pharmacies from filling prescriptions by Kennebunk Dr. Merideth Norris after it became clear to the company she was overprescribing medications to her patients, according to an affidavit filed by an FBI agent in October.

In the affidavit, FBI Agent Dale Wengler wrote he had probable cause to believe Norris, 52, not only had routinely overprescribed opioids, as Walmart had concluded, but also may have committed health care fraud and may have solicited and received kickbacks.

Wengler also cited data showing some of Norris’s patients had died from overdoses.

Wengler filed the affidavit as part of his application for a warrant to search Graceful Recovery, the center Norris operates at 58 Portland Road in Kennebunk.

Norris was arrested in October and charged with illegally distributing opioids and other controlled substances. She has been indicted on 10 counts of unlawfully distributing such substances. On eight of those counts, Norris could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison and dealt a $1 million fine, if convicted. On the remaining two counts, she could face a maximum of five years in prison and a fine of $250,000, if convicted.

In an email this week, Norris' attorney, Timothy Zerillo, said he and his colleagues are prohibited from commenting on their client's case.

"We certainly have a lot to say, but under the rules, all we can say is that Dr. Norris continues to wholeheartedly deny her guilt as to the pending charges," Zerillo said.

She is currently scheduled for trial in May.

New details in the case were revealed in a recently made public affidavit. Wengler cites Medicare statistics showing Norris with the highest rate of prescribing opioids per patient in the state of Maine. Nationally, Norris was in the 99th percentile when it came to the amounts of daily doses of opioids that she prescribed for patients.

“The Medicare data indicates that Norris is in the 95th percentile for a number of outlier behaviors that are indicative of illegal prescribing,” Wengler wrote in his affidavit.

According to Wengler, 22 of Norris’ patients died between January 2018 and June 2022. The patients all were covered by Medicaid and had an average age of 49.

During the same time frame, 9 more of Norris’s patients died. These individuals were covered by Medicare and averaged 68 years old, according to the affidavit.

Wengler said his investigation team had received incident reports and medical examiner reports for at least 7 of Norris’ patients whose primary cause of death was an overdose.

The affidavit said data revealed that Norris prescribed controlled substances to multiple patients who died of overdoses within 45 days of receiving prescriptions from her. “One of those patients died of an overdose in March 2022 – within a few weeks of receiving a methadone prescription from Norris,” Wengler wrote.

The investigation focused on oxycodone, methadone, hydromorphone, diazepam, clonazepam and dextroamphetamine prescribed to three patients, according to court records.

The arrest of Norris made a bit of history in law enforcement’s efforts to combat the opioid crisis, as it was the first one made by the New England Prescription Opioid Strike Force. The strike force was launched last summer to combat the illegal prescribing of drugs during the opioid epidemic in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont.

Walmart cuts off Kennebunk doctor for overprescribing

Walmart’s internal investigative team analyzed the prescriptions Norris had written between October 2020 and October 2021. The company officially “centrally blocked” Norris and prohibited its pharmacies from filling her prescriptions starting on Nov. 3, 2021, according to the affidavit.

Walmart’s analysis showed that Norris’ top-prescribed drugs during that yearlong period were methadone, Suboxone, and oxycodone, according to the affidavit. The company picked up on a number of “red flags” pointing to her prescribing practices.

Among them: evidence of a patient going to multiple pharmacies to have a prescription filled; the amounts of controlled substances that were prescribed; patients who insisted on paying in cash; unusually large quantities or high starting doses in a prescription; and the same diagnosis for a majority of patients.

In his affidavit, Wengler said his research also suggested that Norris had written Medicare-funded prescriptions for approximately 185 patients with whom she may not have had a prior doctor-patient relationship. Wengler described this statistic as a red flag too.

Last June, the state’s Board of Osteopathic Licensure received a copy of the letter Walmart sent to Norris, alerting her to the block. According to the affidavit, the board reviewed the records of five patients from Norris’s office and found that three of them were being prescribed high doses of methadone, with no plans to taper their intake. Norris was informed that she might be violating the board’s rules for treating pain with controlled substances.

Medicare, Medicaid fraud alleged in affidavit

Wengler also said in the affidavit that he had probable cause to believe that Norris had committed fraud when she submitted claims to Medicare and Medicaid for services that were not medically necessary and were not subject to reimbursement.

Wengler also referred to electronic medical records that he said showed Norris’ patients were subjected to urine tests that were then referred to a specific lab in California.

Wengler cited Medicare data saying that Norris referred approximately 154 patients to the lab between Jan. 3, 2018, and June 8, 2022. The referrals totaled 1,329 claims for urine drug testing screening, which resulted in the California lab submitting about $604,323 in claims to Medicare, according to the affidavit.

Medicare paid the lab approximately $262,892, according to Wengler.

The affidavit also cited MaineCare claims data showing Norris referred to the lab urine drug screening for 4,208 claims between Jan. 1, 2019, and October 19, 2022. Those claims resulted in the lab submitting about $962,413 in claims to Medicare – of which Medicare paid the lab $239,788.

Wengler said in the affidavit that investigators interviewed a former employee of Graceful Recovery this past October. The employee told investigators that Norris referred screenings and testing to the lab in California.

The employee stated that lab had embedded an employee at Graceful Recovery, according to the affidavit. The employee, a urine collector, was present whenever the center was open, investigators were told.

“The investigation indicates Norris referred medically unnecessary services to (the lab) in exchange for kickbacks,” Wengler stated in the affidavit.

Wengler said medical records showed that the embedded employee “typically ordered” the services and was on the lab’s payroll.

Attorney Amy Fairfield, who is representing Norris, did not comment on the case when reached by phone.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Kennebunk, Maine doctor charged with overprescribing opioids: New details unsealed