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DME Fraud Enforcement: Telemarketing & Telemedicine
By: The indictments and regulatory activities that took place on April 9th were just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the crackdown on DME fraud, telemarketing and telemedicine operations.
In the weeks and months that have followed ‘Operation Brace Yourself’, healthcare providers (such as DME suppliers and telehealth physicians) and telemarketers allegedly involved in these activities have been subjected to a wide range of penalties from suspension of Medicare billing privileges to civil penalties and/or criminal charges. Here are some of the more serious recent DME, telemarketing and telemedicine related civil and criminal regulatory enforcement actions:Continue reading
$1.2B Health Care Fraud Schemes Involving Telemedicine and Durable Medical Equipment Marketing Executives
Via justice.gov – One of the largest health care fraud schemes investigated by the FBI and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General (HHS-OIG) and prosecuted by the Department of Justice resulted in charges against 24 defendants, including the CEOs, COOs and others associated with five telemedicine companies, the owners of dozens of durable medical equipment (DME) companies and three licensed medical professionals, for their alleged participation in health care fraud schemes involving more than $1.2 billion in loss, as well as the execution of over 80 search warrants in 17 federal districts. In addition, the Center for Medicare Services, Center for Program Integrity (CMS/CPI) announced today that it took adverse administrative action against 130 DME companies that had submitted over $1.7 billion in claims and were paid over $900 million. Read on…
DME Provider Alert: Medicare Competitive Bidding is Back!
By: Not tomorrow, but relatively soon. And with a vengeance! We knew the current Competitive Bidding Program moratorium wouldn’t last forever, and that the floodgates that opened as of the first of this year would eventually be reined in.
Indeed, on March 7, 2019 the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) announced a new round of Competitive Bidding, which will commence on January 1, 2021 and last through December 31, 2023.
The largest changes from previous rounds of Competitive Bidding that immediately stand out are:Continue reading
TCPA Class Action Litigation Alert: Ruling on $23M Liability for Faxed Prescription Requests
By: On February 11, 2019, the Hon. Judge John Z. Lee issued an impactful opinion (msj opinion Case 114-cv-05602) in high-stakes class action litigation that has been pending for more than four years, ruling on a Motion for Summary Judgment that the Defendant’s faxed prescription requests were not unsolicited advertisements in violation of the Federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”).
Here is some background on the case: Over the period of several months in 2013, the Defendant, a DME/pharmacy supplier, sent six prescription requests via facsimile to a doctor for breathing medication on behalf of a patient. Problem was, unbeknownst to the Defendant, the prescription requests were being sent to the wrong doctor. Continue reading
Litigation Alert: Pharmacies with Prescription Refill Reminder Programs Take Note
By: Pharmacies using automated dialers for prescription refill reminders and relying on the statutory prescription refill reminder exemption to the TCPA’s prohibition on the use of automated dialing equipment as an impenetrable blanket against liability need to think again.
The case of Smith v. Rite Aid Corporation, 2018 WL 5828693 (W.D.N.Y. Nov. 7, 2018), revolves around a Rite Aid pharmacy’s use of a prescription refill reminder program to contact a patient to pick up a prescription. The pharmacy placed several calls per week intended to remind the patient to come into the store to pick up their prescription. However, an innocent bystander instead of the intended recipient of the mediation received the calls; either due to error in taking the phone number down or a due to the number being reassigned (which happens to thousands of numbers on a daily basis!). The unintended recipient of the multiple prescription refill reminder calls filed a class action lawsuit under the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”), which provides for statutory penalties of $500-$1,500, per call.Continue reading
