Tampa Medicare Fraud Trial Concludes

Earlier this month, a federal jury in Tampa found three Hillsborough residents guilty of conspiracy to defraud the federal government, health care fraud and making false claims to the government. Ben Bane of Plant City, Greg Bane of Valrico and Tracy Bane of Valrico each face up to 10 years in federal prison on each of five health care fraud counts and five years on each of the five government-related counts (75 years if all maximum sentences were run consecutively, which seems unlikely). They will be sentenced in March, 2011 after extensive pre-sentence investigations.

The trial took place over six weeks in a Tampa courtroom. According to trial testimony, all three Banes were employed by Bane Medical Services, a Durable Medical Equipment (DME) company that provided oxygen and oxygen-related services to Medicare beneficiaries. The government claimed that they knowingly broke a Medicare rule prohibiting DME companies from performing the qualification testing for determining whether a patient needs oxygen.

They were accused of performing these tests, lying to doctors about it, falsifying test results to make it appear that the patients qualified for Medicare-reimbursed oxygen when they did not; and forging doctors signatures on Certificates of Medical Necessity.

Shortly before Bane Medical was sold to another DME company, the government alleges that hundreds of test results were fabricated in order to make it appear that an independent lab had done the necessary tests. They also claimed that records were burned at the home of Ben Bane.

In total, Bane Medical was accused of fraudulently obtained more than $5 million from Medicare. The company was sold for $21 million. It is likely that their sentences will include some form of forfeiture of assets and/or restitution to the government.

The case was investigated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) and the FBI. HHS is the federal department that administers Medicare.