'60 Minutes' Points TV Finger at Medicare Fraud

ATLANTA — The media heat is back on. This time it is the venerable news magazine "60 Minutes," which ran a segment on Oct. 25 focusing on DME fraud in South Florida and Los Angeles. But this time there's also a twist, industry proponents say: The finger of blame points at Medicare for not stopping it.

Complete with a recently convicted criminal named "Tony" in disguise, the 15-minute vignette ended with this memorable exchange in reference to equipment suppliers in South Florida:

Commentator Steve Kroft: "If I went to the phone book and looked under medical equipment suppliers, 95 percent of the companies would be phony?"

Convicted criminal: "Yes, sir."

Reaction to the story ranged from outrage to relief that the focus was largely on obvious criminals who never had an interest in serving patients.

"This story, while not reflecting very well on suppliers, did not show a legitimate supplier who was committing fraud, only crooks who entered the business solely to make easy money," said Wayne Stanfield, president and CEO of the National Association of Independent Medical Equipment Suppliers. "Only CMS can end the fraud by holding contractors accountable for their actions and making significant changes to the inspection and oversight process for suppliers."

"I've already had a couple conversations with the people at '60 Minutes' to straighten out some of the misleading statements made in that piece, which chiefly focused on the failure of Medicare to keep criminals out of the business," said Michael Reinemer, vice president, communications and policy, for the American Association for Homecare.

"AAHomecare has been all over the fraud issue for many years. We've worked hard to get out in front in the media and on Capitol Hill with our own 13-point anti-fraud plan.

"To frame this story," Reinemer continued, "it's worth noting that [AAHomecare President] Tyler Wilson has been on the Fox Business channel discussing our efforts to stop fraud. One of our board members, Joel Marx, spent 30 minutes on C-SPAN talking about the value of home care last month. AAHomecare was quoted on the front page of USA Today saying that the federal government has done a terrible job of keeping criminals out of Medicare."