DME Company Operator Sentenced for Kickback Scheme

ATLANTA—Simon Orobor has been sentenced for conspiring to pay health care kickbacks payments for unnecessary durable medical equipment (DME), resulting in more than $20 million in claims to, and $13 million in payments from, Medicare.

“Telemedicine kickback schemes victimize elderly Medicare beneficiaries when they are most vulnerable,” said U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan. “Our office will continue to work closely with our federal partners to identify these deceitful practices, and to prosecute the criminals who employ these schemes at the expense of our citizens who rely on the Medicare program.”

According to Buchanan, the charges and other information presented in court, between at least June 2016 and February 2019, Simon Orobor owned and operated Devotion Medical Supply, Inc. (Devotion) and Durable Medical Supply, Inc. (Durable), which provided DME such as knee, back, shoulder and wrist braces. Orobor, though another entity called Digital Interventions, LLC, obtained access to thousands of Medicare beneficiaries by paying, on a weekly basis, kickbacks to “Individual 1” and “Company 1” in exchange for signed doctors’ orders for these braces. As part of the conspiracy, Medicare beneficiaries were contacted by call centers located in India, the Philippines and elsewhere, which often obtained patient consent and sales through fraudulent means.

Orobor and Individual 1 disguised the nature and source of these kickbacks by designating the payments as marketing, entering into sham contracts and generating or causing the generation of fraudulent invoices. In total, Orobor, through Devotion and Durable, used the doctors’ orders obtained through kickbacks to submit claims to Medicare in the approximate amount of $20,555,772 and received Medicare reimbursement in the approximate amount of $13,360,721.89.

Simon Orobor, 60, of Houston, Texas was sentenced to 30 months of incarceration, followed by three years of supervised release. Orobor was also ordered to pay $13,360,721.89 in restitution.   

“The FBI is determined to protect all tax paying citizens who are affected by these kickback schemes, especially those who need government assistance for their health care needs,” said Keri Farley, special agent in charge of FBI Atlanta. “This sentencing is a step in the right direction to support our overall goal of stopping deceitful medical operators who steal and put tremendous pressure on our federally subsidized health care programs.”