An Arizona man was sentenced Friday to 15 years in prison and ordered to pay more than $452 million in restitution for conspiring to defraud Medicare and other federal health care benefit programs of more than $1 billion

I hope the incoming Presidential Pardon doesn’t cost him more than 10% of the restitution. /s

Kickbacks and essentially bribes at every level, from doctor to supplies and pharmacies… corruption seems to be the American way, from the president down.

The fraudulent doctors’ orders generated by DMERx falsely represented that a doctor had examined and treated the Medicare beneficiaries when, in fact, purported telemedicine companies paid doctors to sign the orders without regard to medical necessity, based only on a brief telephone call with the beneficiary or no interaction with the beneficiary at all. The DME suppliers and pharmacies that paid illegal kickbacks in exchange for these doctors’ orders billed Medicare and other insurers more than $1 billion, and Medicare and the insurers paid more than $360 million based on these claims. According to evidence presented at trial, Cox and his co-conspirators concealed the scheme through sha