Providers Unhappy with NBC Segment on Medicare Fraud

MIAMI–Just weeks after scathing reports on the home medical
equipment industry by National Public Radio and the New York
Times, HME took another body blow last week, this time
delivered in a two-part series that aired on NBC.

“I felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach,” said Heather
Allan, executive director of the Florida Association of Medical
Equipment Services, after watching the segments that aired Monday,
Dec. 10, and Tuesday, Dec. 11, on “NBC Nightly News with Brian
Williams.”

Like the earlier reports, the NBC series by correspondent Mark
Potter focused on fraudulent Medicare billing in HME, particularly
in South Florida. After both previous stories, industry
stakeholders had pinned their hopes for a fair report on NBC. But
the TV series made only swift mention of legitimate providers and
did not include any of the three hours of discussion Potter had
with FAMES President Raul Lopez, director of operations for
Bayshore Dura Medical in Miami Lakes.

“I was deeply, deeply disappointed,” Allan said, noting that her
overall impression from the NBC piece was that “every single person
in this industry is a crook.”

She added: “I don’t know that the story was ever intended to be
an unbiased and balanced look. I didn’t get the impression that it
was after reviewing both segments.”

In a letter to Williams, Elizabeth M. Moran, executive director
of the Medical Equipment Suppliers Association, which is based in
Casselberry, Fla., and covers Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico and
Texas, objected to the piece, saying it was “sensationalistic and
focused only on the negative.”

“To paint all DME providers with the same brush as those with
false store fronts, or crooked pharmacies, or dishonest doctors,
did an entire industry a grave injustice,” she wrote. Moran asked
for an apology–or even better, she said–“an objective look at the
industry and its good works.”

While the NBC segments themselves did not contain the flip side
of fraudulent DME, visitors to the NBC Web site could dig around
and find more material. For example, Lopez could be seen in a brief
video, and Potter, in a piece written for the site, does
distinguish between legitimate HME companies and crooks.

“Unlike real DME companies, which have showrooms, warehouses,
public offices, trained staff and professional record-keeping, the
fraudulent companies are usually shell companies with shadowy
business practices, hidden owners and tiny, locked offices which
are only there to create the illusion of legitimacy,” he wrote.
“They rarely have any medical products for actual sale or
delivery.”

While the NBC series disappointed many in the industry, it and
the other pieces may not be as damaging as some had feared, said
John Gallagher, vice president of government relations for
Waterloo, Iowa-based VGM. Even though they come at a critical
time–just as Congress is considering additional cuts to oxygen and
power wheelchair reimbursement–they might not carry much
weight.

“The reports don’t help,” Gallagher acknowledged. “But the
timing is such that most members of Congress see right through
it.”