Healthcare Software Company Owner Convicted For ‘Cold, Calculated’ $1,000,000,000 Medicare Fraud Conspiracy

A federal jury in the Southern District of Florida convicted the founder and owner of HealthSplash on Wednesday for his involvement in an over $1 billion Medicare fraud conspiracy.

Brett Blackman, 42, and his co-conspirators allegedly “aggressively targeted hundreds of thousands of Medicare beneficiaries to get them to accept medically unnecessary orthotic braces and other items,” according to a Department of Justice (DOJ) news release. Blackman and his co-conspirators then arranged for purported telemedicine doctors to sign bogus prescription orders for these items, so that their co-conspirators could bill Medicare for them.

In total, Blackman and his co-conspirators billed Medicare and other federal health care benefit programs over $1 billion for this unnecessary equipment, according to the DOJ.

“The Department of Justice crushed one of the most egregious fraud schemes in Florida history,” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a Thursday statement. “This illegitimate operation stole more than $1 billion from American taxpayers — including hundreds of thousands of Medicare beneficiaries. This was cold, calculated, industrial-scale theft targeting the sick and elderly, coercing vulnerable people into buying unnecessary medical equipment.”

“We will not rest until every fraudster ripping off the American people is held accountable,” Blanche continued.

“The defendant orchestrated a massive telemarketing scheme that used foreign call centers and spam mailers to target our country’s senior citizens and defraud government health care benefit programs,” Assistant Attorney General Colin M. McDonald of the DOJ’s National Fraud Enforcement Division said in a statement. “The Fraud Division will continue to aggressively prosecute health care fraud schemes, hold criminals accountable, and protect the integrity of America’s health care system.”