More charges were filed Wednesday against a Beckley-based nephrologist who has a guilty plea hearing set for today.
Dr. Jose Jorge Abbud Gordinho, 67, was charged with health care fraud on Tuesday. In November, a federal grand jury returned a 21-count indictment against him, alleging he conspired to distribute prescription painkillers, such as oxycodone for illegitimate purposes.
A guilty plea hearing is set for today in Beckley in front of U.S. District Court Judge Irene Berger.
The charges filed Wednesday by federal prosecutors state that between January and October 2015, Gordinho knowingly and willfully defrauded Medicare and Medicaid. The charge Wednesday came in the form of an information, which can't be filed without a defendant's consent.
Reached by phone Wednesday, Mike Hissam, one of the attorneys who represents Gordinho, wouldn't comment on the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Miller Bushong also could not be reached for comment.
Hissam filed a motion last month asking that Berger push back the plea hearing. She refused, writing that her schedule wouldn't permit it.
In November, federal prosecutors announced they had charged Gordinho with "multiple counts of distribution of oxycodone, oxymorphone, hydrocodone and morphine not for legitimate medical purposes in the usual course of medical practice and beyond the bounds of medical practice, as well as two counts of distributing controlled substances not within Gordinho's capacity as a medical doctor."
Among state nephrologists - doctors who specialize in kidney care - Gordinho wrote the sixth-most hydrocodone-acetaminophen Medicare Part D prescriptions, including refills, in 2013. That year, Gordinho handed out 1,577 hydrocodone prescriptions, according to ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative journalism organization that tracks doctors and drugs in the United States.
Gordinho wrote almost 2,000 oxycodone prescriptions to Medicare patients in 2013.
According to the West Virginia Board of Medicine, Gordinho is a 1977 graduate of the Autonomous University of Guadalajara and did his post-graduate training at Mountainside Hospital in Montclair, New Jersey, in 1987. Gordinho obtained his West Virginia license in 1989, and is also licensed to practice in Virginia and New Jersey.
In 2003, the West Virginia medical board reprimanded him for "certain answers given by Dr. Gordinho on his license renewal form for the period of July 1, 2000, to June 30, 2002." The board has taken no other actions against him.
In June 1999, the Virginia Board of Medicine issued a notice to Gordinho saying the board was looking into allegations that he may have violated several laws in the treatment of seven patients at a hospital in Low Moor, Virginia. Following a six-month review, the board exonerated Gordinho and dismissed the matter with no action taken against him. The issue was the only one on file in the Virginia Board of Medicine's records on Gordinho.
The doctor has been held in the Southern Regional Jail since his arrest in November. The charges contained in the indictment carry a possible maximum 20-year sentence in federal prison and a $1 million fine for each of the counts. The charges filed Wednesday also carry a maximum 20-year prison sentence.
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