Lincare Made Billions While Repeatedly Defrauding Medicare. Feds Did Little To Rein It In.
Lincare Made Billions While Repeatedly Defrauding Medicare. Feds Did Little To Rein It In.
Lincare, the nation’s largest distributor of home oxygen equipment, has repeatedly violated Medicare rules and probation agreements, victimizing ailing patients and costing taxpayers huge sums. The federal government has done little to stop it.
The company, the largest distributor of home oxygen equipment in the United States, admitted billing Medicare for ventilators it knew customers weren’t using (2024) and overcharging Medicare and thousands of elderly patients (2023). It settled allegations of violating a law against kickbacks (2018) and charging Medicare for patients who had died (2017). The company resolved lawsuits alleging a “nationwide scheme to pay physicians kickbacks to refer their patients to Lincare” (2006) and that it falsified claims that its customers needed oxygen (2001). (Lincare admitted wrongdoing in only the two most recent settlements.)
Can we establish a death penalty for these kind of crimes?
We need it. They need a reason to not fuck around and I would happily vote we supply one for them.