The past year has seen a large up-tick in federal activity aimed at curbing the nation’s opioid crisis. Of particular note, on July 13, 2017, the Medicare Fraud Strike Force arrested 412 defendants in a nationwide health care fraud enforcement directive. Of these, 120 were charged for actions taken in relation to opioids.

Since then, Attorney General Jeffrey Sessions has created two agencies for the purpose of curbing the opioid epidemic. First, in August 2017, Sessions created the Opioid Fraud and Abuse Detection Unit (the detection unit), a Department of Justice (DOJ) pilot program that will employ data analytics to target physicians and pharmacies whose opioid prescription practices “far exceed their peers.”