Home Health & Hospice Week

Is your business partner a provider -- or an undercover agent? 

For durable medical equipment suppliers already on their best behavior, here's yet another motivator to keep up the good work.

Three DME company presidents allegedly splitting the loot from a Medicare/Tricare kickback scheme may have reached the end of the line -- with a little help from undercover investigators.

Albert Forcella, the president of Tampa-based Geri-Care Orthotics, was charged March 9 with paying Bradley Buzbee, president of Tampa-based Gulf Coast Support Services, a monthly fee to use his Medicare supplier number to submit false claims on behalf of other DME suppliers, reports Pennsylvania U.S. Attorney Patrick L. Meehan in a news release and court filing. They would switch billing from one supplier number to another when DME regional carriers stopped paying claims under a number, prosecutors charge.

The fraudulent Medicare reimbursement was allegedly split by Steven Santostefano, president of Phoenix-based Intramedical, along with the unidentified president of California-based West Coast Orthotics. Santostefano's share was sent to his Phoenix voice mail company, Southwest Automated Voice Com, according to the charges filed.

Forcella and Santostefano were caught in the feds' net after some of the profits were allegedly used to pay kickbacks to Bensalem, PA-based Chosen Care -- a home health agency run by undercover federal agents -- to solicit that agency's Medicare and Tricare business. Forcella funneled some of the kickbacks to Chosen Care through a management company in Alexandria, VA also run by undercover agents, Pioneer Management Group, Meehan charges.

Forcella faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted.