By: Najla Alexander
NJ authorities announced that a Connecticut man was sentenced yesterday to 30 months’ imprisonment for his role in a multimillion-dollar durable medical equipment (DME) health care fraud and kickback scheme.
Senior Counsel Philip Lamparello stated that Jesse Foote, 60, of Fairfield, Connecticut, previously pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Esther Salas in Newark federal court to a two-count information charging him with conspiracy to violate the Federal Anti-Kickback statute and conspiracy to commit health care fraud.
According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:
From December 2017 to March 2021, NJ officials stated that Foote conspired with overseas telemarketing call centers, DME suppliers, telemedicine companies, and doctors to submit fraudulent claims to health care benefit programs, including Medicare and TRICARE, through a circular scheme of kickbacks and bribes.
Foote controlled a marketing company through which he purchased patient “leads” from overseas telemarketing companies, NJ officials say. The leads consisted of information on Medicare and other beneficiaries, as well as pre-written doctors’ orders for DME.
According to NJ officials, the telemarketing call centers targeted Medicare beneficiaries and others with health insurance to persuade them to accept DME, including orthotic braces, without regard to medical necessity. Foote paid bribes and kickbacks to telemedicine companies, which in turn paid bribes and kickbacks to doctors, to obtain doctors’ orders for DME based on the leads.
The doctors often approved the DME orders without contacting the beneficiary or making a bona fide assessment of the DME's medical necessity. Foote then sold the signed doctors’ orders to others with whom he had kickback arrangements, NJ authorities stated.
The doctors’ orders were ultimately submitted to DME suppliers, including DME suppliers controlled by Foote, which submitted fraudulent claims for reimbursement to health care benefit programs, including Medicare, TRICARE, and private insurance companies, NJ officials say. 
In total, according to NJ officials, Foote and his co-conspirators caused the submission of false and fraudulent claims to health care benefit programs totaling more than $7.8 million for DME.
In addition to the prison term, Judge Salas sentenced Foote to three years of supervised release and ordered him to pay $7,878,991.56 in restitution, NJ officials said.