According to court documents, Mr. Qian and Mr. Willis were patient recruiters for Onward Medical Supply, a Houston-area DME company. Mr. Kalu assisted with Onward activities and also ran his own durable medical equipment company, BOK, through Onward.
Onward allegedly began billing Medicare for fraudulent durable medical equipment in 2003. Mr. Qian and Mr. Willis admitted that they accepted kickbacks at predetermined rates per patient for recruiting patients for Onward. They also admitted that they knew Onward would then bill Medicare for DME that these patients did not need or never received.
Mr. Kalu is the brother of Doris Vinitski, Onward’s owner who pleaded guilty in this case last week. Mr. Kalu admitted that as an employee of Onward, he willfully participated in the fraud scheme. He also admitted that he opened his own fraudulent durable medical equipment business and ran it for a time through Onward using Onward recruiters, including Mr. Willis. Two others have also pleaded guilty in the scheme.
The men are scheduled for sentencing in August and face up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Read the DOJ’s release on Onward Medical Supply.
