Pricing on a note seized as evidence during a search of the Recare Health Clinic may be the most revealing detail in the case. According to court documents, prescriptions for oxycodone 30 mg cost as much as $500, while hydrocodone prescriptions often cost $300.

Maryam Qayum, MD, the clinic's owner, was sentenced to 12.5 years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to unlawfully distribute controlled substances. The US Department of Justice detailed that Qayum served as the clinic's only prescribing physician, issuing high-strength oxycodone and hydrocodone prescriptions without legitimate medical purposes, often without interacting with patients. The price of a prescription increased with the drug's street value. Court documents described staff accepting "tips" from drug dealers in exchange for moving patients through the clinic more quickly.

Four additional defendants—a street-level drug dealer, nurse practitioner, security guard, and pharmacist—were also previously sentenced in the case. Recare operated “well outside the course of a normal medical practice," noted court documents and Qayum sold controlled substance prescriptions to street-level drug dealers who were referred to at the clinic as "providers."

The case was investigated by the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Conroe Police Department and prosecuted by attorneys from the Justice Department's Criminal Division Fraud Section and an assistant attorney in the Southern District of Texas.

Source: US Department of Justice