Trying to scam the system almost always ends up catching up with you.
Take the recent case of a 41-year-old Bremerton man, now facing 25 felony charges alleging he faked on-the-job injuries to fool hospitals and clinics into prescribing him narcotics.
Robert B. Boyer, Jr., is accused of visiting more than three dozen emergency rooms and urgent-care clinics throughout Western Washington to get prescriptions for Vicodin, Percocet and other painkillers, according to charges filed recently by the Washington Attorney General’s Office.
Pretending to be an ironworker, Boyer showed up with visible cuts and other injuries that he claimed to have suffered in construction accidents from November 2012 through February 2013, charging papers said. Each time, medical staff treated Boyer and prescribed him painkillers.
At most of the hospitals and clinics, authorities allege, Boyer gave false names, false birthdates and false Social Security numbers to open workers compensation claims with the Department of Labor & Industries (L&I).
L&I cover medical expenses in legitimate claims for workplace injuries. In these cases, however, Boyer left hospitals and clinics with more than $134,000 in unpaid medical fees, charging papers said.
Defendant Facing 25 Counts
Boyer faces 15 counts in Pierce County and 10 counts in King County of obtaining a controlled substance by fraud. The Pierce County Superior Court has issued bench warrants on Boyer for failing to appear on the Pierce charges. He was scheduled to appear on the remaining charges in King County Superior Court late last month.
The charges are the result of an L&I investigation that found Boyer filed 51 workers comp claims by seeking treatment at medical facilities throughout Western Washington, from small locally owned clinics to multiple facilities in the UW Medicine, MultiCare and Franciscan health systems.
A complicating factor was that Boyer typically did not present any identification, taking advantage of medical providers’ duty to treat patients in an emergency, L&I investigators said. In an interview in March, Boyer told L&I investigators he also knew his real name was in the Washington State Prescription Monitoring Program, which allows medical providers to see which controlled drugs have already been dispensed to individual patients.
During the investigation, health care providers asked L&I investigators how to deter this type of scheme. L&I encouraged them to verify the employment of patients claiming workplace injuries. If employment can’t be verified, providers can consider treatment options other than prescribing narcotics.
In addition, investigators said the facilities that photograph patients for patient records or that retain video footage of their emergency room for several months proved especially helpful in identifying the suspect.
Author Kori Shafer-Stack, Editor, Amaxx Risk Solutions, Inc. is an expert in post-injury response procedures and part of the Amaxx team helping companies reduce their workers compensation costs by 20% to 50%. www.reduceyourworkerscomp.com. Contact: kstack@reduceyourworkerscomp.com.
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