Christopher Harwood, owner of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based telemedicine company TelevisitMD, was sentenced Oct. 23 to 20 years in prison for leading a $46.2 million Medicare fraud conspiracy that ran for more than six years, according to an Oct. 23 Department of Justice news release.
The court also ordered Mr. Harwood, 44, to pay $17,942,402 in restitution to Medicare and $10,431,463 in forfeiture. He pleaded guilty in March 2026 to conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and wire fraud.
The court found Mr. Harwood and his co-conspirators used aggressive telemarketing to push Medicare beneficiaries into accepting orthotic braces and genetic tests they did not need, according to the Justice Department. He paid physicians to approve the orders. Those physicians disregarded Medicare’s telemedicine rules, had no genuine relationships with the patients and often signed orders without meaningful contact with them.
Mr. Harwood then sold the signed orders to durable medical equipment suppliers, laboratories and marketers participating in the scheme. He also owned several Florida-based DME companies that billed Medicare for braces patients did not want or need.
Of the $46.2 million in false claims, Medicare paid $17.9 million. Mr. Harwood personally netted more than $10.4 million.
The FBI and HHS’ Office of Inspector General investigated the case. A trial attorney in the Health Care Fraud Section of the Justice Department’s National Fraud Enforcement Division, which the department created April 7, is prosecuting it.
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