Paul Randall sentenced to 30 years for $270M Medi-Cal fraud

Paul Randall, 67, of Orange, California, has been sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for his role in a massive healthcare fraud scheme that defrauded Medi-Cal of nearly $270 million. Randall was ordered to pay $178,746,556.22 in restitution.

Between May 2022 and April 2023, Randall and his associates exploited a temporary suspension of Medi-Cal’s prior authorization requirements during a transition to a new payment system. Operating through Monte Vista Pharmacy, the group billed the state tens of millions of dollars per month for expensive, non-contracted generic drugs that were often medically unnecessary or never actually dispensed to patients.

In some instances, common medications were billed at extreme markups; for example, a generic supply of meloxicam was billed at approximately $13,424. The scheme also involved billing for over-the-counter items like Folite vitamin tablets. To facilitate the fraud, Randall utilized illegal kickbacks to obtain beneficiary information and paid co-conspirators, including pharmacist Kyrollos Mekail and nurse practitioner Patricia Anderson, to sign pre-filled prescriptions without patient consultation.