Texas Surgeon Sentenced to 8½ Years in Prison in $145M Fraud Scheme

Feb 24, 2026

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A Texas orthopedic surgeon was sentenced Tuesday to 8.5 years in federal prison for his role in a $145 million health care fraud scheme that targeted injured federal workers and government insurance programs. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Dr. Michael Taba, 61, of McKinney, Texas, received 102 months in prison and was ordered to pay over $13 million in restitution for conspiracy and health care fraud convictions.

Prosecutors said the sentence underscores the seriousness of health care fraud tied to government benefit programs and the ongoing efforts to recover taxpayer dollars and protect patient safety. Taba’s sentencing comes nearly two and a half years after his conviction by a federal jury in the Northern District of Texas.

Evidence at trial showed that Taba accepted bribes and kickbacks from pharmacy owners in return for prescribing expensive compound creams that were medically unnecessary and billed to the Department of Labor’s Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs (DOL-OWCP) and insurers. Those creams were mixed at low cost but billed at up to $16,000 per prescription, and patients testified they were ineffective or caused adverse reactions.

Between May 2014 and March 2017, three pharmacies in the Fort Worth and Arlington area billed more than $145 million to DOL-OWCP and Blue Cross Blue Shield for prescriptions linked to Taba and others, and were paid over $90 million for those claims.

“This sentence sends a strong message to those who would defraud our federal health care programs for personal gain,” the Justice Department said in a statement.

The case highlights the federal government’s intensified focus on combating fraud schemes involving compounded medications and protecting the integrity of workers’ compensation and other benefit programs.

A restitution order and other financial judgments are expected to be enforced as part of the sentence. Appeals or payment deadlines have not been publicly detailed. What happens next will likely involve civil recovery efforts tied to the scheme’s proceeds.

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