Home Health & Hospice Week

• DME suppliers have more bad press to contend with as they continue their push to get competitive bidding repealed.

Sylvester Ijewere, owner of Arleta, Calif.- based Maydads Medical Supply, pleaded guilty to one count of health care fraud in U.S. Central District Court in California, according to the Associated Press. Ijewere admitted to purchasing fraudulent prescriptions and medical documents to submit nearly $500,000 in bogus power wheelchair claims to Medicare.

And another Los Angeles-area DME company owner was recently sentenced in absentia to nine years in prison following a more than $1 million power wheelchair fraud case, the Department of Justice has announced.

Leonard Nwafor, owner and operator of Pacific City Group Inc. (aka Pacific City Medical Equipment), will also serve three years of supervised release following his prison term, pay $526,243 in restitution and $25,000 in fines, and forfeit more than $526,000 in stolen Medicare funds.

In some cases Nwafor paid beneficiaries to use their Medicare information fraudulently, but in others he and his representatives strong-armed benes into believing their Medicare benefits would be terminated if they didn't go along with his schemes, prosecutors say.

Nwafor has fled and has become a fugitive enemy of the government, DOJ days.