Spokane Valley medical supply company to pay over $220,000 to resolve alleged involvement in kick-back scheme
The owner of a Spokane Valley medical supply company agreed Wednesday to pay more than $220,000 to resolve allegations of his involvement in a kickback scheme to bill Medicare for unnecessary medical equipment.
According to a news release, Justin Leland, CEO of U.S. Professional Medical Supply LLC, submitted around 400 billing claims to Medicare for durable medical equipment – items designed for daily use, such as wheelchairs and oxygen equipment – that patients did not need. The orders were submitted by a number of doctors who solicited and received kickbacks in exchange for placing them.
Investigators discovered that the patients for whom these doctors were ordering equipment had never met with a provider in person, but were instead contacted via telemarketer and received the medical equipment despite not having a need for them, according to the release.
Medicare paid $112,310 for these fraudulent claims, according to the release.
“Durable medical equipment businesses that participate in illegal kickback schemes to boost their profits undermine the public’s trust and jeopardize the integrity of the Medicare program,” said Special Agent in Charge Steven Ryan with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General in a news release.
In an unrelated case, an Ohio doctor was sentenced Wednesday to two years in federal custody followed by three years of supervised release for conspiracy to accept kickbacks in a telemarketing scheme targeting many Eastern Washington patients from May 2021 until last September.
Dr. Thomas Webster, who lived in Olympia at the time of the crime, pleaded guilty to conspiring with an unnamed company to fabricate medical records and treatments for Eastern Washington patients. Webster also pleaded guilty to ordering durable medical equipment to disperse to other companies that fraudulently billed Medicare and TRICARE over $14.6 million for it, according to the release.
The release alleges that Webster and the unnamed company also billed the two insurance firms for doctor visits and exams that never occurred, citing an instance in which Webster claimed to have performed an exam and ordered equipment for a patient’s previously amputated limb. Webster admitted to directly receiving at least $839,566 from these sorts of fraudulent doctor visits, according to the release.
Webster’s defense argued that his actions stemmed in large part from his ongoing divorce, which placed a financial and emotional burden on him, according to court documents.
Webster was sentenced to pay a restitution of $839,566, along with a fine of $50,000 according to the release.
“By placing his personal financial benefit ahead of his duty to patients, Dr. Webster violated the oath he took as a doctor and caused more than $14.6 million dollars to be lost from critical health care programs designed to care for elderly and disabled Americans, as well as for military servicemembers and their families,” U.S. Attorney Vanessa Waldref said in a news release. “Telemarketing schemes that target and exploit the elderly and our servicemembers are especially pernicious because they prey on those who are often most in need of a doctor’s independent judgment that is not tainted or biased by the doctor’s own personal financial interest.”