Nashville Pain Clinic Owner Convicted For $35 Million Healthcare Fraud

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The Tennessee Conservative Staff –

A federal jury has convicted a Nashville man on more than a dozen charges for his involvement in a $35 million healthcare fraud scheme.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, 72-year-old Michael Kestner served as the owner, operator, and manager of a number of pain clinics in several states. In Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia, those clinics were under the Pain MD.

Officials say that over a 10-year-period, Kestner fraudulently billed federal health care programs for “medically unnecessary injections…to a population of opioid-dependent patients.” The bills totaled approximately $35 million.

Trial evidence showed that Kestner is not a doctor but pressured nurse practitioners and physician assistants working for Pain MD to administer back injections to patients of the clinic who sought opioid treatment.

Witnesses also stated that patients who refused to receive regular injections were threatened with being sent away to suffer opioid withdrawals.

Court records show that the injections were billed as Tendon Origin Insertion Injections (TOI), but the majority of the patients were never diagnosed with pain in their tendons.

Kestner would send email to employees, ranking their “production” against others and criticizing them if they fell “below average”, in an effort to encourage administration of the shots. He was also accused of failing to respond to notices from insurance companies notifying him of incorrect billing of the injections, and he also allegedly ignored a lawsuit, as well.

Pain MD because Medicare’s highest biller of TOI injections, billing eight times as many as the second highest.

Kesnter was found guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and 12 counts of health care fraud. He faces up to ten years in prison for each count.

Sentencing will take place on February 27, 2025.