The Podcast by KevinMD Invoking your rights is the only way to survive a federal investigation
Jan 29, 2026
Muhamad Aly Rifai, an internist, psychiatrist, and addiction specialist who survived a federal healthcare fraud prosecution and wrote a memoir, walks through what happens when agents knock. He warns against answering questions, explains why mere silence can fail without a verbal rights invocation, and stresses calling specialized counsel and routing all communication through lawyers.
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Invoke Rights And Speak Only Through Counsel
- Never speak to investigators without an attorney present and verbatim invoke your Fifth Amendment rights.
- Tell them you want to discuss this with your attorney and let all submissions go through counsel.
Helping Instincts Can Harm Legally
- Physicians' training to explain and reassure becomes a legal liability during investigator interviews.
- Unrecorded interviews leave your version vulnerable to being rewritten by investigators.
After-Hours Explanation Led To Conviction
- A family physician said he met a chronic pain patient after hours because of traffic and later pleaded guilty to diversion.
- His innocent explanation was used to claim he diverted controlled substances after hours.
