Texas Orthopedic Surgeon Sentenced to 102 Months in $145 Million Health Care Fraud Scheme
On February 24, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that Dr. Michael Taba, 61, an orthopedic surgeon from McKinney, in Collin County, Texas, had been sentenced to 102 months in federal prison and ordered to pay over $13 million in restitution. Taba accepted bribes and kickbacks from pharmacy owners to prescribe medically unnecessary compound creams to injured federal workers, in a scheme with $145 million in fraudulent billings, in a case heard in the Northern District of Texas.
According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Taba's co-defendants owned and operated three pharmacies in Fort Worth and Arlington, Texas, and paid Taba and other doctors millions of dollars in illegal bribes and kickbacks. The compounds were mixed in the back rooms of the pharmacies by untrained teenagers at a cost of around $15 per prescription, then billed to the Department of Labor's Office of Workers' Compensation Programs for as much as $16,000 per prescription. Patients who received the creams testified that the creams were ineffective and, in some instances, caused painful, irritating skin rashes.
Between May 2014 and March 2017, the pharmacies billed the DOL-OWCP and Blue Cross Blue Shield more than $145 million and were paid more than $90 million for unnecessary prescriptions referred by Taba and other medical providers. On November 16, 2023, a federal jury in the Northern District of Texas convicted Taba on all counts of the superseding indictment, including one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and three counts of health care fraud.
Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department's Criminal Division said the sentence is the result of years of tireless efforts by prosecutors and agency partners, and a reminder that medical professionals who violate the trust society places in them for personal enrichment will be investigated and prosecuted. Inspector General Anthony P. D'Esposito of the Department of Labor's Office of Inspector General said Taba accepted bribes and kickbacks for writing thousands of prescriptions for unnecessary compounded medications issued to injured federal workers covered by the DOL-OWCP, putting illegal profits above patients' safety. The U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General, the DOL-OIG, the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General, and IRS Criminal Investigation investigated the case. Trial Attorney Ethan Womble and Acting Assistant Chief Catherine Wagner of the Criminal Division's Fraud Section prosecuted the case.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：位于美国华盛顿的美国卫生与公众服务部总部休伯特·汉弗莱大楼（资料照片）。ajay_suresh 摄，CC BY 2.0，经 Wikimedia Commons；联邦固定图库标准图。 / Photo: The Hubert H. Humphrey Building, headquarters of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in Washington, D.C. (file photo). Photo by ajay_suresh, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; federal fixed-library image.
