ABINGDON, Va. — Hidden-camera footage played in a Va. courtroom shows door-to-door gurney deliveries to dialysis treatments of patients who, in that same week, were moving around normally, driving to stores and pushing shopping carts.
Jurors overseeing the Saltville Rescue Squad’s health care fraud case in Abingdon watched nearly three hours of footage showing alleged fraudulent patient trips from 2008 to 2011, according to TriCities.com.
Defense attorneys said that the filmed patients initially needed an ambulance due to poor health and were getting better due to the dialysis.
“You don’t know if a few days before they were picked up, whether they were playing one-on-one basketball with their husbands or they were in bed sick, do you?” defense attorney Michael Khouri said.
Prosecutors did not argue the defense’s claim but showcased the footage and photos of patients being transported door-to-door for treatment, some walking or sliding off gurneys. One piece of footage showed an ambulance picking up a patient and pulling into a Hardee’s.
Prosecutors say the rescue squad billed insurance companies $2.6 million and were paid $880,000, TriCities.com reported. Anthem BlueCross BlueShield and Medicare only cover ambulance trips for patients who can’t move on their own.
Doctors initially signed off on the rides, but investigators say those involved in the alleged fraud falsified documents by copying the doctors’ paperwork and changing the dates.