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Lawsuit claims Medicare fraud
By LARRY DOUGHERTY © St. Petersburg Times, published September 11, 1998 The lawsuit claims a corps of salespeople fanned out through poor neighborhoods and housing projects in St. Petersburg and Tampa, asking elderly people if they wanted electric wheelchairs or scooters, air mattresses or hospital beds. The salespeople then billed Medicare and Medicaid for thousands of dollars and delivered cheaper equipment, or in some cases no equipment at all, to the Medicare recipients, the lawsuit said. In Tampa, a salesman promised a power wheelchair to 74-year-old Beatrice King, a retired hairdresser who walks with difficulty, the lawsuit said. Medicare paid $6,400 for a wheelchair, a hot water pad, a nerve stimulation device and a heat therapy pump. But the salesman delivered a pillow and medical equipment King can't name and can't use. "I think it was pretty damn rotten what he did to me," King said Thursday. A whistle-blower with knowledge of the companies' activities first presented the allegations in secret to federal authorities last year. An investigation resulted in the lawsuit and the serving of more than a half-dozen search warrants Thursday at offices in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties. By filing the civil suit, which names 21 people and 25 medical equipment corporations, the government hopes to stop the alleged fraud and recoup the money. No one was arrested Thursday, although a related criminal investigation is ongoing. According to the lawsuit, the scam involved kickbacks for referrals, forged doctors' signatures and money laundered though accounts in Caribbean banks. A recurring pitch involved promising older people electric scooters that cost $500 and billing government insurance for wheelchairs that cost between $5,000 and $10,000, the lawsuit said. In January, President Clinton announced a crackdown on Medicare fraud, which is estimated to exceed $20-billion a year. Expensive wheelchairs and hospital beds were at the center of scams uncovered recently in New York, Virginia and Florida. Part of the scheme, according to court records, involved spreading claims over different Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement accounts to minimize the chances of triggering an audit. Kickbacks for referrals that yielded a wheelchair billing ranged from $50 to $75, to gift baskets and gift certificates, the lawsuit said. Some of the people who were supposed to have received wheelchairs or scooters could actually walk, the lawsuit said. The companies named in the lawsuit include Goldstar Healthcare Inc. at 7815 N. Dale Mabry Highway, Suite 210, in Tampa; Bay Area Medical Products Inc. at 10860 76th Court, Largo; Global Mobility Inc. at 12087 93rd Way in Largo; Med-Voyage Inc. of 9438 U.S. 19 N, Suite 229 in Port Richey; and T-Tech Medical Services of 35 Osprey St. in Safety Harbor. An FBI affidavit identified the "principal participants" of the operation as William E. Burkholder, 33, of Clearwater; Daniel B. Burkholder, 39, of Largo; David James Burkholder, 40, of Largo; Scott Allison Madden, 34, of Alpharetta, Ga.; Barry Douglas Haught, 44, of Tampa; Ernest Lee Sleeth, 43, of Tampa; and Terry Duane Thomas, 38, of Safety Harbor. A man who answered the telephone at William Burkholder's house in Clearwater had no comment. Attempts to contact the others named in the suit for comment were unsuccessful. Individual violations of the state and federal false claims statutes are punishable by a fine of $10,000 per false claim, plus judgments three times the amount of each false claim.
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AMPA -- A network of Tampa Bay medical-equipment providers fraudulently overbilled government health insurance plans by at least $7-million during the past five years, according to a federal lawsuit unsealed Thursday.
