A pair of Florida men who owned and operated seven durable medical equipment companies were charged with submitting $34.8 million in fraudulent claims for medically unnecessary equipment.
What happened?
- Kenneth Kessler III, 42, and Michael Gomez, 42, are accused of paying illegal kickbacks and bribes to purported marketing companies that targeted thousands of Medicare beneficiaries with “deceptive and aggressive” telemarketing campaigns, according to a Sept. 17 Justice Department news release.
- The indictment alleges that the marketing companies obtained beneficiaries’ personally identifiable information and arranged for telemedicine companies to generate physicians’ orders for unnecessary medical equipment.
- Mr. Kessler and Mr. Gomez allegedly used those orders to submit fraudulent claims through their network of durable medical equipment companies.
- The men are each charged with conspiracy to commit healthcare and wire fraud, two counts of healthcare fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States and to offer and pay healthcare kickbacks, and two counts of offering and paying kickbacks in connection with a federal healthcare program. They each face a maximum of 65 years in prison.
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