An administrative assistant at Westmont, Ill.-based Hinsdale Orthopaedics has been sentenced to one year in prison for writing fraudulent opioid prescriptions.
From 2017 to 2019, Amanda Biesiada fraudulently wrote 85 prescriptions to an acquaintance for hydrocodone and oxycodone, among other controlled substances, the Justice Department said in a Jan. 18 news release. Ms. Biesiada is not a licensed physician and could not legally prescribe medications without the direction and approval of licensed physicians.
Ms. Biesiada wrote the prescriptions on behalf of six providers at Hinsdale Orthopaedics who did not direct or approve them, according to the Justice Department.
Prosecutors said Ms. Biesiada tried to conceal the prescriptions by marking them as "filed in error" in the practice's prescription system.
Ms. Biesiada was handed the prison sentence after she pleaded guilty in 2021 to intentionally dispensing controlled substances outside the scope of professional practice and without a legitimate medical purpose.
Hinsdale Orthopaedics is a 31-physician practice that merged with Des Plaines-based Illinois Bone & Joint Institute, the state's largest physician-owned musculoskeletal group, in April 2020.