PHILADELPHIA, PA — In a remarkable case that intertwines opioid misuse, prescription deception, and the abuse of federal health programs, Dr. Neil K. Anand, a doctor based in Bensalem, Pennsylvania, has received a 14-year federal prison sentence for masterminding several fraud schemes related to the unlawful distribution of controlled substances and extensive health care fraud.
Dr. Anand, 48, was also mandated to pay more than $2 million in restitution and forfeit an extra $2 million, after being found guilty of various offenses including health care fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, and the illegal distribution of opioids.
“This was not medicine — it was exploitation,” said a Justice Department spokesperson. “Dr. Anand abused his white coat to profit from pain, addiction, and deception. Today’s sentence delivers long-overdue justice to his victims and to the taxpayers who funded his scheme.”
“Goody Bags” of Fraud and Addiction
According to court documents and testimony presented at trial, Dr. Anand ran a multi-layered fraud operation that involved:
- Submitting false claims to major insurers — including Medicare, the Office of Personnel Management, Independence Blue Cross, and Anthem
- Dispensing “Goody Bags” of medically unnecessary prescriptions from his own in-house pharmacies
- Illegally distributing opioids, which involved providing over 20,000 oxycodone tablets to merely nine patients.
- Employing unlicensed interns to generate prescriptions for controlled substances using pre-signed blank prescription pads.
To entice patients into accepting the counterfeit medications, Anand added highly addictive opioids in the bags — prescribed outside the standard medical practice and lacking legitimate medical justification. “These so-called ‘Goody Bags’ were poison packs — tools of a calculated, dangerous scheme,” said prosecutors.
In total, the fraudulent claims netted over $2.4 million in reimbursements from federal and private insurers.
Cover-Up and Concealment
Upon discovering that he was being investigated by federal authorities, Anand made moves to conceal his embezzled millions. He shifted $1.2 million into an account held in a relative’s name, meant for the advantage of a minor, clearly trying to protect the illegal funds from confiscation.
However, the Department of Justice, working alongside the Office of Inspector General from HHS, the U.S. Postal Service, and the Office of Personnel Management, effectively traced the money — along with the fraudulent documentation linked to it.
In April 2025, a federal jury convicted Dr. Anand on:
- Conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud
- Three counts of health care fraud
- One count of money laundering
- Four counts of unlawful monetary transactions
- Conspiracy to distribute controlled substances
The charges could have carried decades in prison, but U.S. District Court sentenced Anand to 168 months (14 years) in prison and financial penalties totaling over $4 million.
“Doctors who use their license to deal drugs and scam the health care system will be caught — and they will go to prison,” said the DOJ in a statement.
As the opioid epidemic persists in taking lives nationwide, the sentence handed down to Dr. Anand serves as a stark reminder of how professional trust can be exploited for individual gain — and how the legal system is striving to put an end to it.
“When physicians become traffickers, they destroy the lives they swore to protect,” the DOJ said. “Dr. Anand now faces the consequences of betraying that oath.”
