Doctor's 'Pill Mill' Scheme With Fatal Overdoses Leads To Prison Sentence

OAKTON, VA — An Oakton doctor was sentenced Wednesday to 13 years in prison for running a pill mill scheme out of an urgent care center. The scheme was tied to multiple fatal drug overdoses, according to federal prosecutors.

David Allingham, 65, owned and was the only medically licensed practitioner at Oakton Primacy Care Center, and the website advertised his specialty in treating patients with addiction. His sentence in federal court resulted from conspiring to distribute oxycodone and amphetamines, maintaining drug premises, and false statements relating to health care matters. Allingham pleaded guilty in January.

The pill scheme happened between at least April 2019 and January 2024. According to prosecutors, Allingham would write prescriptions for opioids and amphetamines without properly assessing the medical need of the patients. Court documents indicate that pharmacies within Virginia filled 7,330 prescriptions for oxycodone totaling 405,164 pills that Allingham prescribed.

Prosecutors say multiple patients died of drug overdoses within hours, days or weeks of getting an oxycodone prescription from Allingham.

Patients had to pay out of pocket for office visits to Oakton Primacy Care Center, costing $300 to $550 per patient. It would be an extra $700 to receive a doctor's letter. Allingham required patients with chronic pain to visit the practice at least every 21 days, but some of these visits were virtual with a non-medical trained employee. Prosecutors say Allingham authorized prescription renewals without a physical exam but just based on "uncorroborated information the patients provided."

Multiple pharmacies decided to investigate the doctor's opioid prescribing practices and refused to fill some of his ordered prescriptions. Once a national pharmacy chain indicated it would no longer fill prescriptions written by Allingham, he told his employees to phase out brand pharmacies and use "mom and pop" pharmacies to avoid further scrutiny of patients and his high-dose opioid prescribing practices.

At appointments, Allingham typically required patients to take a urine drug screenings but often ignored failed screenings and withheld them from patient files. One patient failed 40 drug tests between 2019 and 2023 but continued to receive oxycodone prescriptions, prosecutors say. Allingham wrote in the patient's file that the patient tested positive for cocaine by handling money with cocaine residue.

In addition, the doctor prescribed amphetamines to multiple chronic pain patients to help with weight loss, regardless of if they were obese. According to prosecutors, at least 527 prescriptions for amphetamines with more than 13,500 pills were given to patients.

Allingham also got his employees to unlawfully use another doctor's identity to prescribe medications for himself and his family. The doctor directed staff to provide the Oakton Primacy Care Center phone numbers for the prescriptions fraudulently wrote with the doctor's name. Allingham instructed staff how to respond if pharmacists called to inquire. The doctor whose name staff fraudulently used was not employed at Oakton Primacy Care Center at the time.

In July 2023, law enforcement searched Allingham's home and medical practice. Prosecutors say Allingham made false statements about his prescribing practices and instructed an employee to delete text message communications with him.