DOJ 2024 11 04 Cerebral Telehealth 3 6m Npa Adderall Controlled Substances

Summary

U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney's Office, Eastern District of New York press release dated Monday, November 4, 2024, headed Telehealth Company Cerebral Agrees to Pay Over $3.6 Million in Connection with Business Practices that Encouraged the Unauthorized Distribution of Controlled Substances. DOJ announces that Cerebral, Inc. entered into a non-prosecution agreement and agreed to forfeit $3,652,000, plus a $2,922,000 fine that is deferred and waived if the company complies. DOJ states that from February 2021 to October 2022 Cerebral instituted internal measures to increase prescriptions, including an Initial Visit Rx Rate target of 95%, and did not maintain effective controls against drug diversion. DOJ says Cerebral stopped prescribing controlled substances in October 2022 and has no prior U.S. criminal history. The statements are DOJ's.

Summary drafted by a model from the document's text below and checked by script against that text before publication. It is a navigation aid, not a reading of what the document proves. Where AI is used

Full text

PRESS RELEASE

Non-Prosecution Agreement Resolves Investigation of the Company's Efforts to Increase Prescriptions of Adderall and Other Controlled Substances via Telemedicine

Breon Peace, the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, and Anne Millgram, Administrator of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), announced today that the online mental healthcare company Cerebral, Inc. (Cerebral) has entered into a non-prosecution agreement (NPA) with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York (the Office), and has agreed to pay more than $3.6 million for engaging in practices that encouraged the unauthorized distribution of controlled substances from 2019 to 2022.

Under the terms of the NPA, Cerebral agreed to forfeit $3,652,000 to the United States. Cerebral has also agreed to pay a fine of $2,922,000, which the Office has determined that Cerebral does not currently have the ability to pay; it will be deferred for the term of the NPA, and waived at expiration if Cerebral is in compliance.

Cerebral is an online mental health company operating primarily as a direct-to-consumer business since October 2019. Beginning in October 2020, Cerebral expanded its medication offerings to include controlled substances, and beginning February 2021, permitted providers to prescribe stimulant medication such as Adderall for ADHD.

Between February 2021 and October 2022, Cerebral instituted internal measures to increase prescriptions with the goal of boosting patient retention and revenue, including an "Initial Visit Rx Rate" target of 95% and an "ADHD Stimulant Rx Metric" target of "100% or near 100%," along with bonus structures tied to these metrics.

Cerebral did not maintain effective controls against drug diversion; the company had thousands of duplicate patient accounts not fully addressed until early 2022, permitting at least one patient to obtain stimulant prescriptions from multiple providers even after being flagged for stimulant misuse.

Cerebral voluntarily stopped prescribing controlled substances to all patients in October 2022 and has no prior U.S. criminal history.

The agreement resulted from a DEA investigation (New York Division, Buffalo Diversion Group, Tactical Diversion Squad). Assistant United States Attorneys Genny Ngai, Gillian Kassner and Miranda Gonzalez are in charge of the prosecution.

File and source

File

DOJ_2024-11-04_cerebral-telehealth-3.6M-npa-adderall-controlled-substances.md.txt

Size

2,387 bytes

SHA-256

1587f77f7c36305cfb0c48e5898027ce83c0e8e780d9d66b1e48ff9d454acdfd

Our copy

DOJ_2024-11-04_cerebral-telehealth-3.6M-npa-adderall-controlled-substances.md.txt

Original

www.justice.gov