A former Virginia Beach business owner was sentenced to 51 months in prison for his role in operating a durable medical equipment supply company that defrauded federal healthcare programs of millions of dollars. According to court documents, in 2018 and 2019, Frank Alosa, 49, of Kentucky, and a co-conspirator operated Merchant Card Solutions, LLC d/b/a Med Brace Shop, a durable medical equipment supply company based in Virginia Beach, for the purpose of submitting false and fraudulent claims for reimbursement to Medicare, Tricare, and Virginia Medicaid.
As part of the conspiracy, Alosa and the co-conspirator purchased illegal orders for unwanted and medically unnecessary durable medical equipment, such as orthotic braces, and then used those orders to fraudulently bill Medicare and the other healthcare programs for over $8 million in total. The orders for the medical equipment were fabricated through a third party reaching out to beneficiaries and illegally soliciting unnecessary equipment to them. The orders were then endorsed by healthcare practitioners who, in exchange, received illegal bribes. As a result, the equipment was issued to beneficiaries without regard for actual medical necessity and the orders were billed to their insurance programs, profiting Alosa and his co-conspirator’s company.
