Drs. Desi and Deno Barroga were indicted for allegedly receiving $12 million from fraudulent claims and illegally distributing hydrocodone to patients from the Dallas pain management clinic where they operated.
The physicians are accused of carrying out a fraudulent scheme between 2016 and 2022 against Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cigna, and United Healthcare. According to documents, the doctors required patients to visit once a month, but the patients would allegedly stay for only fifteen minutes. They often left with a prescription for a Schedule II narcotic.
While at the clinic, the Barrogas would bill insurance for injections of anti-inflammatory steroids without administering the medicine. According to the indictment, the doctors would put a needle against the patient’s skin without piercing the skin to mimic an injection. Other patients received small amounts of steroids.
Next, the Barrogas would bill insurance as if the patient had received dozens of injections when the prosecution claimed that most of them had received no injections or small amounts. The physicians allegedly billed for 80 injections on a patient in a single visit. Court records show that the clinic sometimes billed more than $4,000 for services on a single day for one patient.
The clinic allegedly created fake health records to reflect the fraudulent billing, often copying and pasting the record from patient to patient with little to no variation. The Barrogas submitted the false records to the insurance companies to justify the alleged fraud. The defendant billed insurance companies for $50 million, of which they were paid $12 million for the fraudulent work.
According to the Texas Medical Board, Deno Barroga was accused of improperly prescribing controlled substances to patients in 2015. As a result, his practice had to be monitored by another physician, and he had to take a professional development course on physician prescribing.
In 2018, he was accused in a State Board of Administrative Hearing document of failing to assess and treat a patient who died from a drug overdose from the controlled substances he prescribed the patient. According to the SBOA documents, he diagnosed a woman in her 30s with stenosis and degenerative joint disease without support in his medical records, and even though the patient said she suffered from depression and was already using narcotics and psychiatric medications, he prescribed her Oxycontin and Percocet without consulting the patient’s psychiatrist. When Barroga learned the patient had received a prescription for other medications in violation of the controlled substances contract, he allegedly took no action.
In 2021, the Texas Medical Board assigned Desi Barroga 16 hours of continuing education after it was determined that he failed to keep an adequate medical record, including issues with examination details and the rationale for prescription, which included a fentanyl patch for at least one patient.
Desi Barroga was assigned a public defender and pleaded not guilty. Deno Barroga also pleaded not guilty and retained a white-collar defense lawyer. He has had two different lawyers since he was arrested on Nov. 16.
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