Advanced Search

Home Health & Hospice Week

Industry Notes:

Ohio Supplier Pleads Guilty

Published on Thu Nov 18, 2004

Wheelchairs at the center of fraud case.

Authorities are continuing their crackdown on fraudulent wheelchair suppliers.
 
James M. Frantz, who formerly operated Medi-Care Orthopedic & Hospital Equipment based in Findlay, OH, pled guilty to Medicare fraud and other charges in Ohio federal court Nov. 9.
 
Prosecutors accused Frantz of fraudulently billing Medicare, Medicaid and private insurers for $58,000 worth of durable medical equipment from 1996 to 2003, reports The Toledo Blade. Frantz billed for wheelchairs he never delivered, or delivered used wheelchairs instead of the new ones billed for, says Assistant U.S. attorney Seth D. Uram. He also allegedly billed for non-covered wheelchair accessories.
 
And Frantz pled guilty to tax evasion and bankruptcy fraud, the Blade says. Prosecutors charge that he used company funds to pay for personal expenses like a boat, country club dues, condo repairs and credit card payments.
 
Frantz will face sentencing in January, the newspaper notes. Medi-Care, with branches in Toledo, Oregon, Bowling Green, Findlay, Fremont and San-dusky, has since been purchased by a new owner.

 

  • Because Medicare has stopped paying virtually all power wheelchair claims from the Harris County, TX area, The Scooter Store is pulling out of the region, the New Braunfels, TX-based company says. Medicare hasn't paid 98 percent of the claims the Scooter Store has submitted for beneficiaries in the Houston area since Operation Wheeler Dealer took effect a year ago.
     
    Medicare has paid The Scooter Store for only eight of 500 wheelchairs it has delivered in the area in that time period, the company says in a release. Denied and unpaid Harris County claims have cost the company $2.5 million, it says. In other geographic regions, Medicare is paying about 95 percent of claims the company has submitted.
     
    Medicare has paid 83 percent of claims for power wheelchairs this year, but only 5 percent in Harris County, the Houston Chronicle reports.
     
    The company believes few if any wheelchair dealers are left serving the area since Operation Wheeler Dealer brought payment to a halt.

     

  • A Washington state man who shot an Apria nurse to death has been sentenced to 25 years in prison, reports the Associated Press. Prosecutors say Jason Ray Taylor, 24, shot Apria Healthcare Group Inc. nurse Victoria Mardis, 49, in a "thrill kill." The fatal shooting occurred in Redmond, WA in July 2002, when Mardis pulled over to pick up some paperwork that had blown off the top of her car.

     

  • The threat of a face-to-face exam requirement for physicians prescribing DME continues to hang over suppliers' heads. Although the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services pushed off the regulation in the final physician fee schedule published in the Nov. 15 Federal Register, CMS is working on the reg "right now as we speak," an agency official said in the CMS physician fee schedule Open Door Forum Nov. 15.
     
  • Older patients are not as happy with consumer-directed care as younger ones.
     
    So concludes a University of California at Los Angeles study that found younger recipients (ages 18 to 64) viewed consumer-directed services more enthusiastically than older ones (ages 65 and up), according to Scripps Howard News Service. Furthermore, recipients who were 75 or older reported lower satisfaction with consumer-directed health services than those 65 to 74, says the study conducted by Drs. A.E. (Ted) Benjamin and Ruth E. Matthias.

     

  • Home nursing continues to pay off for Almost Family Inc. The Louisville, KY-based company saw its visiting nurse Caretenders revenues increase 9 percent to $7.6 million for the quarter ended Sept. 30, compared to $6.9 million for the same period in 2003. The increase was despite difficulties Florida HHAs had with hurricanes in the quarter. About 50 percent of Almost Family's visiting nurse revenues come from the state.
     
    Revenues from the company's in-home personal care service line increased 5 percent to $8.5 million in the same time period. On the other hand, Almost Family's revenues from its adult day care business line dropped 9 percent to $6.1 million for the quarter.
     
    Overall, the company reported net income of $404,627 on $22.1 million in revenues for the quarter, up from a $283,346 profit on $21.6 million in revenues for the same period in 2003.
     
    Almost Family says it intends to increase its visiting nurse business through internal growth and acquisitions over the next year. And the company will purchase an Orlando, FL-based home health agency from BayCare Health System by Nov. 30.

     

  • Odyssey Healthcare Inc. has been on a roller coaster ride in the past month. After announcing a Department of Justice investigation against the for-profit hospice chain (see Eli's HCW, Vol. XIII, No. 38, p. 302), the company's stock dropped from a per-share price of $16.62 Oct. 15 to as low as $7.13 in following days.
     
    But when the company announced it would be buying back stock with its cash, the stock rebounded to $12.51 per share at press time. Odyssey said in a Nov. 2 conference call that it has met with the DOJ but has nothing new to report about the investigation. The company hasn't seen physician referral problems due to the investigation and hasn't hired additional lawyers to handle the matter, CEO Richard Burnham said in the call.
     
    The company also hasn't set aside any sort of reserve for a possible penalty in the investigation, CFO Doug Cannon said in the call. The investigation is in preliminary stages and Odyssey expects it "could go on for quite a long time," Cannon said.
     
    Odyssey reports net income of $9.0 million on revenues of $87.5 million for the quarter ended Sept. 30, compared with a $7.8 million profit on $71.0 million in revenues for the same period in 2003.

     

  • Rotech Healthcare Inc. increased profits but lowered revenues in the latest quarter. The Orlando, FL-based company reports net income of $8.4 million on revenues of $131.3 for the quarter ended Sept. 30, compared to a $2.3 million profit on $142.4 million in revenues for the same period in 2003. Respiratory therapy equipment and services made up 87 percent of revenues and DME made up 11 percent.

     

  • Critical Home Care Inc. has changed its name to Arcadia Resources Inc., following the "reverse merger" of the DME company with Arcadia's home nursing, staffing and pharmacy businesses. The newly merged company based in Southfield, MI saw losses in its DME and pharmacy lines during the quarter ended Sept. 30, it notes in a release.

    • Other Articles in this issue of

    Home Health & Hospice Week

    View All