Son of ex-pharma owner admits to role in kickback scheme | Mich. men accused of stealing medical equipment from hospital | Mich. man charged with in N95, N99 mask fraud case
Alex Fleyshmakher, son of a former co-owner of a Union City, N.J.-based pharmacy, entered a guilty plea to conspiring to violate the federal anti-kickback statute and conspiring to defraud the IRS. Authorities said Fleyshmakher and others paid kickbacks and bribes to health care professionals in order to steer prescriptions to the Prime Aid Pharmacies from 2008 to August 2017.
Paul Purdy and Valdet Seferovic, former employees at Beaumont Hospital, and Zafar Khan, owner of Wholesale Medical & Surgical Suppliers of America, are facing wire fraud and conspiracy charges as part of an 18-count indictment. Authorities said the defendants stole medical devices and/or supplies from the hospital and then resold them through the internet.
Rodney Stevenson, operator of EM General in Michigan, was charged with wire fraud, mail fraud and money laundering. Authorities said Stevenson, through his company, purported to sell N95 masks with N99 filters between February 2020 to March 2020, resulting to the company making approximately $3.5 million in sales to more than 25,000 customers despite delivering almost none of the masks.
Katherine Prosper of Maine was sentenced to four years of probation with a condition of home confinement not to exceed six months and was ordered to pay $89,864 in restitution after pleading guilty to Social Security fraud and making false statements. Court records show Prosper, a Supplemental Security Income recipient, inaccurately reported the presence of her husband in her household in order keep her eligibility to receive payment benefits from the Social Security Administration.
Medical specialist societies are well positioned to improve medical data interchange by setting standards on clinical equivalence for commonly used lab tests in their particular field, thus enabling the reconciliation of data from different sources, write Julia Adler-Milstein, Aaron Neinstein and Russell Cucina. Risks, benefits and financial costs of integrating data must be balanced, but even a conservative approach that brings incremental improvement in data integration would be a tremendous gain, they write.
The Sequoia Project is recruiting health IT professionals at health departments and information exchanges for a new workgroup "to apply the lessons learned to improve timely access to information to support emergency preparedness for the future," says workgroup facilitator Debbie Condrey. Workgroup members will focus on interoperability, regulatory issues, data privacy, funding and best practices.
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