Eight Braces for One Patient: The $30 Million CHAMPVA Scheme

Chiropractor Mark Loftis billed Medicare, TRICARE and VA’s CHAMPVA over $30M for braces beneficiaries didn’t want — in one case eight braces for a single person. Fourteen years in prison.

Loftis and co-conspirators hid the true ownership of Back Pain Home Supplies LLC, doing business as EZ Medical Supply, and concealed that unenrolled entities were billing through it.

He paid over a million dollars in illegal kickbacks — including through a shell marketing company — to marketers, purported telemedicine companies and a call center that persuaded elderly and disabled Americans to hand over personal information. The doctors’ orders came from telemedicine practitioners who never examined, and often never spoke to, the beneficiaries.

In one example from the case, the conspirators billed for eight orthotic braces for a single beneficiary. The programs paid out over $8 million on the false claims. A jury convicted him after a 12-day trial.

"submitted over $30 million in false and fraudulent claims and were paid over $8 million"
— U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs

Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs. Case file in the VA Fraud case files — part of the VA Fraud record. Cases are published as the courts decided them; amounts are stated as the Justice Department states them (billed, stolen, or ordered in restitution, as labeled).