Century City/ Westwood FeBruAry 25 – MArCH 24, 2022
NEWS CenturyCity-WestwoodNews.com
UCLA Chancellor Establishes Task Force To Review UCLA Threat Response After former lecturer made threats a full review of policies is needed By Dolores Quintana After the mass violence threat that occured last week involving a former lecturer, UCLA Chancellor Gene Block has decided that a task force is needed to review all of the school’s current emergency protocols regarding responses to threats to the school, personnel, faculty or students. Chancellor Block said, “UCLA is committed to protecting our community against potential threats. We are grateful that the collaborative efforts among UCPD and other law enforcement agencies led to last week’s apprehension in Colorado of an individual who threatened some members of the UCLA community.” Block added that, “We are also committed
to constantly improving our protocols for responding to these emergencies and taking the opportunity to reflect on what worked well and what could be improved. To that end, I am calling for the creation of a task force, including student representatives, to conduct a comprehensive review of our current protocols for responding to potential threats and other incidents on campus.” This task force will be chaired by David G. Price, Dallas P. Price and Stephen Yeazell and will examine the following issues: • how information about potential threats is received on the campus. • how threats are evaluated by UCPD and with which administrative units they collaborate. • how and when cross-campus leadership and key administrative and academic units are made aware of potential threats. • how determinations are made about how and when to notify the broader community. • the effectiveness of our emergency notification processes to the community, including the BruinAlert system.
Photo: Patricia Marroquin/UCLA Students on the UCLA campus, with the Janss Steps and Royce Hall in the background.
Owner of Westwood Pharmacy Owner Sentenced to Federal Prison for Running $14 Million Health Care Fraud Scheme Navid Vahedi faces over two years in federal prison By Sam Catanzaro The owner of a Westwood pharmacy was sentenced recently to 30 months in federal prison for orchestrating a scheme that fraudulently obtained millions of dollars for compounded drugs in a scheme that paid illegal kickbacks for patient referrals and fraudulently paid patients’ copayments. Navid Vahedi, 42, of Brentwood, was sentenced by United States District Judge Christina A. Snyder. Vahedi and his West Los Angeles-based company, Fusion Rx Compounding Pharmacy, pleaded guilty in February 2021 to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and payment of illegal remunerations. On January 18, Judge Snyder sentenced Fusion Rx Compounding Pharmacy to five years of probation. She has ordered Vahedi and his company to jointly pay $4,400,525 in
restitution. Fusion Rx was a provider of compounded drugs, which are tailor-made products doctors may prescribe when FDA-approved alternatives do not meet the health needs of patients. Vahedi, a licensed pharmacist, and Fusion Rx routed millions of dollars in kickback payments through the businesses of two marketers to steer prescriptions for compounded drugs to Fusion Rx. As part of the scheme, Vahedi and the two marketers provided physicians with preprinted prescription script pads that offered “checkthe-box” options on the form to maximize the amount of insurance reimbursement for the compounded drugs. From May 2014 to at least February 2016, Fusion Rx received approximately $14 million in reimbursements on its claims for compounded drug prescriptions. As part of its contracts with various insurance networks, Fusion Rx was obligated to collect copayments from patients. Because the copayments might discourage patients from requesting expensive and potentially unnecessary compounded drug prescriptions, Fusion Rx did not collect copayments with
any regularity and, in other instances, it provided gift cards to patients to offset the amount of the copayments, according to court documents. After an audit raised concerns that Fusion Rx’s failure to collect copayments would be discovered, Vahedi directed Fusion Rx funds to be used to purchase American
Express gift cards, which were then used to make copayments for certain prescriptions without the patients’ knowledge. Fusion Rx then submitted claims on these prescriptions to various insurance providers, falsely representing that patients had paid the required
Navid Vahedi, see page 4