dailyloe.com – Joel Rufus French, a former NFL player, has been sentenced to 16 years in prison for defrauding Medicare and the Department of Veterans Affairs.
French, 47, from Armory, Mississippi, owned a marketing company and was the beneficial owner of eight durable medical equipment companies.
The U.S. Department of Justice reported that French’s scheme involved selling patient information and creating sham doctors’ orders for unnecessary orthotic braces.
According to the DOJ, French collaborated with overseas telemarketing call centers that pressured elderly patients into providing personal and insurance information.
These call centers sometimes altered recordings to falsely indicate that patients consented to receive braces they did not need.
French paid kickbacks to telemedicine companies to obtain doctors’ orders from physicians who never examined the patients.
These fraudulent orders were then sold to marketers and medical supply companies, which submitted claims to Medicare.
Additionally, French defrauded Medicare and CHAMPVA by billing for braces through his DME companies, using straw owners and false documents to conceal his involvement.
Scott J. Lampert, Acting Deputy Inspector General for Investigations, stated, “The defendant orchestrated a brazen, yearslong scheme that preyed on elderly patients and families of disabled and deceased veterans to steal millions from Medicare and CHAMPVA.”
