Home Health & Hospice Week

DME suppliers across the country should take special pains with their wheelchair billings. 

Durable medical equipment suppliers should make sure they have iron-clad documentation to support their claims for power wheelchairs. Just because Houston is ground zero in the feds' campaign against fraud and abuse relating to power wheelchairs doesn't mean DME suppliers in other parts of the country aren't in the crosshairs as well.

Suppliers are getting busted for alleged Medicare wheelchair scams all over the country. In one recent case, the operator of Vasu Wheelchair Repair in Santa Monica, CA agreed to plead guilty to health care fraud and kickback charges associated with wheelchair claims.

According to U.S. Attorney Debra Yang's office, Vasu Deo billed Medicare for medically unnecessary high-ticket items such as power wheelchairs, wheelchair accessories and hospital beds. He also allegedly paid physicians kickbacks in exchange for their signatures on certificates of medical necessity - sometimes as much as $500 a pop. And he's accused of paying for Medicare beneficiary information that he used for trumped up claims and billing for supplies he never furnished.

Prosecutors say Deo collected more than $1 million from Medicare based on fraudulent claims. He faces up to 25 years in prison when he is sentenced.