Doctor who ran North Hills pill mill pleads guilty in federal court

A former doctor from Hampton pleaded guilty Tuesday to health care fraud and money laundering stemming from his illegal prescription of painkillers.

Andrzej Zielke, 66, will be sentenced by Senior U.S. District Judge Nora Barry Fischer on Nov. 1 on six counts, including unlawful dispensing of a controlled substance.

“Mr. Zielke created a lucrative scheme peddling opioids for profit and at the same time undermining our health care system through fraudulent billing,” said FBI Pittsburgh Special Agent in Charge Mike Nordwall in a news release. “Unethical, crooked doctors who choose to line their pockets cause medical care costs to increase for everyone. The FBI is committed to holding those who think they won’t be caught accountable.”

Zielke, who was initially arrested in 2017, operated Medical Frontiers LLC, a pain management practice in Gibsonia, whose website said, ” … at Medical Frontiers, we refused to accept the notion that there is nothing we can do for (patients suffering from chronic pain) and the only solution are painkillers.”

According to the criminal complaint in the case, a confidential informant told investigators in November 2014 that Zielke was known in the McKeesport area as a doctor who would write oxycodone prescriptions. Then, in 2016, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Center for Program Integrity reported that three of Zielke’s patients died from drug overdoses.

The investigation revealed that patients paid $90 or $250 per visit, the complaint said, and they reported that Zielke’s office was often packed with people drug seeking. One patient described it as a “pill mill.”

A former employee said that Zielke took all the money collected in his practice home with him at the end of each day, as well as a daily log sheet, the complaint said.

Zielke overprescribed Oxycodone, Methadone, Hydrocodone and Oxymorphone, investigators said. He then submitted fraudulent claims to Medicaid to cover the cost of the drugs.

In addition, prosecutors said Zielke wired approximately $150,000 in proceeds from his drug distribution to Kitco Metals Inc. in Canada to buy silver and collector coins.

“We are intensely focused on stemming the supply of illegal opioids into our communities, regardless of whether the dealers are trafficking on a street corner or are abusing their physician’s oath by prescribing painkillers for no legitimate medical reason,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Stephen R. Kaufman. “We will continue our critical work to prosecute all those who are fueling our nation’s continuing opioid crisis.”

Zielke received his medical license in Pennyslvania in 1995. According to records with the Pennsylvania Department of State, he was suspended from practice in 2017 when he was charged.