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Florida Businessmen Charged With Bilking Medicare For Penis Pumps

samsung1

Ohio

Oh dear, the scams allegedly perpetrated on the Medicare money pinata just get more and more creative.

Two entrepreneurs in South Florida went way too far in billing Medicare for penis pumps to help impotent men, according to charges by the U.S. attorney in Miami.

The men run companies called Charlie Rx and Happy Trips that submitted $63,000 in bills for, er, male vacuum erection systems that resulted in more than $28,000 in payments by Medicare, the Miami Herald reports.


Citing indictments returned earlier this year, the government says the two companies fraudulently billed Medicare for nearly $1.9 million for all sorts of medical equipment and medicines. They received about $735,000 in federal payments.

In reporting on the cases, the Herald got one of the best comments in recent memory from Health and Human Services. When asked about bogus claims submitted for four penis pumps for a single female patient, HHS's Peter Ashkenaz replied, "That we should have caught."

Medicare, he explained, only pays for male vacuum-erection systems that are determined to be "medically necessary'' by a doctor who diagnoses impotence.

We're still trying to track down the legal papers in the cases. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami said they weren't available on its website or the PACER database of federal court filings.

The government said late last week that the two men had been arrested. And, as the feds remind us in their statement about the cases, "An indictment is only an accusation, and a defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty."

By one recent estimate, fraudsters bilk Medicare of $65 billion a year. South Florida has been a hotbed for fraud and a centerpiece in the government's campaign against it.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2010/08/…