The founder of a Florida-based healthcare platform has been convicted by a federal jury for operating a scheme that generated false physicians’ orders to defraud Medicare and other federal healthcare programs out of more than $1 billion, the Justice Department said in a May 14 news release.
Brett Blackman, of Johnson County, Kan., owned and operated HealthSplash, which acquired an internet-based platform called DMERx that connected pharmacies, DME suppliers and marketers with telemedicine companies that signed fraudulent physicians’ orders in exchange for illegal kickbacks.
Foreign call centers targeted hundreds of thousands of Medicare beneficiaries to accept medically unnecessary orthotic braces and other items, with physicians signing orders without any meaningful interaction with patients. DME suppliers and pharmacies billed more than $1 billion in claims, of which Medicare and other insurers paid more than $450 million.
Mr. Blackman was convicted on counts of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and wire fraud, conspiracy to pay and receive healthcare kickbacks and conspiracy to defraud the United States. He faces up to 20 years in prison and is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 26. A co-defendant, Gary Cox, was previously convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison.
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