Software company owner convicted for running "cold, calculated" $1 billion Medicare fraud scheme

CBS News ^ | May 14, 2026 | Kerry Breen, Adam Yamaguchi, Laura Geller & Rachel Gold

[Twotone]

The owner of a healthcare software company was convicted of massive Medicare fraud on Thursday, the Department of Justice said, ending what Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche called "one of the most egregious fraud schemes in Florida history."

HealthSplash owner and CEO Brett Blackman, 42, and co-conspirators "aggressively targeted hundreds of thousands of Medicare beneficiaries to get them to accept medically unnecessary" products including orthotic braces, according to a DOJ news release.

Blackman and his co-conspirators used Power Mobility Doctor Rx, LLC, or DMERx, a platform acquired by HealthSplash in 2017, to coordinate illegal kickbacks with telemedicine doctors and pharmacies that would falsely bill Medicare for the unnecessary items, the DOJ said. The fraud was hidden with sham contracts and manipulation of documents.

The scheme included generating "false and fraudulent doctors' orders" that indicated a doctor had examined a Medicare beneficiary, when in reality the doctor had little or no interaction with the patient. When an undercover agent posed as a Medicare beneficiary, they were shunted to an overseas call center, where representatives pushed them to agree to order multiple braces, according to the Justice Department. A doctor's note claims that a physician conducted various tests on the undercover agent, but the agent and doctor never met, the DOJ said.

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TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: conviction; medicarefraud

[Twotone]

You wanted a conviction? Here's one!

[Liz]

[Jim Noble]

“He founded HealthSplash to disrupt the healthcare industry by redefining how the four cornerstones (Patients, Providers, Servicers and Payors) interact with each other...”

Mission accomplished.

[Liz]

Medicare thief Blackman's mansion.

[Opinionated Blowhard]

The scale of fraud in government programs is mindboggling. A really smart schemer like this guy can defraud the government of billions. Some moron like the people running the Minnesota Learing Center can defraud the government out of tens of millions. Individuals who don’t look like rocket scientists have defrauded the government out of a million dollars of Food Stamps. And no one really gave a crap. Republicans paid lip service to rooting out fraud and Democrats actively supported it as part of their governance model.

[Liz]

cbsnews.com

Excerpt: CBS News has been investigating hospice fraud for months. One investigation examined the business and financial records of every hospice currently operating in Los Angeles County, California, applying the same indicators identified by state auditors as potential red flags for fraud.

The analysis revealed that over 700 of the roughly 1,800 hospices in L.A. County trigger multiple red flags for fraud as defined by the state.

The CBS News investigation also found one Los Angeles County hospice physician's name, Dr. Rajiv Bhuva, on Medicare claims for nearly 2,800 patients across 126 California hospices in 2024, according to the last full year of available data.

Bhuva told CBS News he doubted the figures and said there was no statutory limit to the number of hospices any one physician can staff. But after a brief exchange, he declined to speak further. Bhuva is no longer allowed to bill Medicare.

[who knows what evil?]

Hindus...more corrupt than Somalis?

[GSWarrior]

Many Democrat voters still insist that there is no fraud. Or that one bad apple is not indicative of widespread fraud.

[Gunslingr3]

“The Department of Justice crushed one of the most egregious fraud schemes in Florida history,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in the news release. “This illegitimate operation stole more than $1 billion from American taxpayers — including hundreds of thousands of Medicare beneficiaries.

Geez. How much did Rick Scott's company have to steal if he had to pay a 1.7 billion dollar fine?

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Wow, a BILLION dollars!

Blackman et al acquired DMERx 2017. The scheme ran from 2017 until Blackman and his co-defendants were originally indicted in 2023, so they were able to run the scam for roughly six years.

It was a multi-layered industrial operation:

• Targeting victims: The scheme relied on a network of foreign call centers and aggressive spam mailers to target senior citizens.
• The platform: At the center was a fraudulent arrangement connecting pharmacies, "Durable Medical Equipment" (DME) suppliers, and marketers with telemedicine companies willing to accept illegal kickbacks in exchange for signed doctors' orders produced through the DMERx platform.
• Fake doctor sign-offs: The fraudulent doctors' orders falsely represented that a doctor had actually examined and treated the Medicare beneficiaries when, in fact, the doctors were simply paid to sign orders without any meaningful interaction with the patient — and in some cases, no interaction at all.
• Caught in the act: An undercover agent posed as a Medicare beneficiary, and evidence showed a doctor using Blackman's platform signed off on orders claiming to have performed physical tests that are impossible to conduct over the phone or internet.
• Covering tracks: Blackman and his co-conspirators concealed the scheme through sham contracts and by manipulating the doctors' orders to avoid Medicare audits.

Blackman faces a maximum of 20 years for the fraud charges and additional five-year terms for the kickback and false statement convictions. His sentencing is set for August 26, 2026. His co-defendant Gary Cox was already sentenced to 15 years.

I use a CPAP machine at night to sleep better. The machine and supplies are provided by a DME. I was getting my things from Verus Healthcare and their billing was horrible: grossly inaccurate, overcharging, impossible to decipher and you would get useless, know-nothing people on the phone who barely spoke English. I complained and complained and finally got kicked up to a native English speaker who could figure it out. She got back to me a couple weeks later and said "You're right. Here's a refund." I got a couple hundred bucks back and fired them. It seems that everything in health care is hopelessly corrupt. That's what happens when government gets involve.

[Liz]

Equally corrupt.

[Manuel OKelley]

I wonder if they will get pardons like the Chrisleys, Changpeng Zhao, Treor Milton, Lawrence Duran, etc.?

[escapefromboston]

Cops going after another innocent black man

[Bobbyvotes]

1 Hindu versus how many thousand Somali’s?
There are about a Billion Hindu’s in the world. I am sure 0.1% are corrupt. There are about 3.5 million Hindu’s in USA. 0.1% of that would be 35,000 corrupt Hindu’s in USA.

What % of Somali’s in Minnesota are corrupt? I bet it is lot higher than 0.1%.

[unixfox]

See. Crime does pay.

[Sequoyah101]

The crime is always only the tip of the iceberg. The sore that lingers and testers after is that it makes us trust less and fear more.

This fraud will result in everyone being treated as a criminal even when seeking care for legitimate needs.