Home Health & Hospice Week

FBI questions dozens of employees of the national wheelchair provider.

The campaign against power wheelchair fraud is gaining steam as a high-profile power wheelchair provider goes under the feds' microscope - and other wheelchair dealers can expect to see more of the same.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has interviewed 24 Scooter Store employees who work in the company's New Braunfels, TX headquarters and a San Antonio location, press reports say. They are all "lower-level" employees, Scooter Store President Doug Harrison told The Houston Chronicle.

The FBI confirms an investigation is underway, but hasn't revealed the nature of the probe, according to press reports. It seems clear the measure is related to the recent crackdown on Medicare reimbursement for power wheelchairs and other mobility products, announced in September by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the HHS Office of Inspector General (see Eli's HCW, Vol. XII, No. 32, p. 251).

But the Scooter Store probe is not related to recent fraud investigations of suppliers in the Houston area, in which recruiters rounded up patients at trailer parks and other areas and paid them for their participation in a fraud scheme. In the scheme, suppliers received Medicare reimbursement for power wheelchairs but never furnished the equipment (see Eli's HCW, Vol. XII, No. 34, p. 267).

Problems related to the Scooter Store are "maybe not quite as flagrant" as that case, one official told the Chronicle.

The Scooter Store, which describes itself as the largest provider of power wheelchairs in the country, says it pretty much expected some kind of scrutiny when Operation Wheeler Dealer was launched. It maintains it is in compliance with Medicare rules.

But perhaps in an effort to enhance its credibility, the company has hired a former durable medical equipment regional carrier medical director as its new vice president of government relations and chief medical director. Paul Metzger, who was medical director for Region C DMERC Palmetto GBA, will take the new post Nov. 10. Metzger left Palmetto at the end of last month.

The Scooter Store completed the first phase of accreditation with the Accreditation Commission for Health Care Inc. in August - perhaps another bid for respectability. When Operation Wheeler Dealer was announced in September, Harrison applauded the fraud-fighting effort and said the company had passed along its suspicions of other providers' fraudulent behavior to CMS.

More Scrutiny on the Way 

The Scooter Store won't be the last wheelchair provider that finds itself in the hot seat, predicts attorney Jeff Baird with Brown & Fortunato in Amarillo, TX. Thanks to the fraud-fighting campaign, dealers can expect increased DMERC audits, both criminal and civil fraud investigations, and whistleblower lawsuits.

"Our law firm's Health Care Group has witnessed a number of recent aggressive DMERC audits of [home medical equipment] suppliers that sell power mobility products," Baird tells Eli.

"It is critical that if an HME supplier sells power mobility products, its documentation must be pristine and it must be able to show documentary proof of medical necessity," Baird warns.