United States Attorney Brandon B. Brown announced that criminal charges have been filed against a West Monroe man in connection with an alleged scheme to defraud Medicare. The charges filed in federal court are part of the Department of Justice’s 2024 National Health Care Fraud Enforcement Action. Michael L. Riggins, 61, of West Monroe, Louisiana, was charged by indictment with conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and healthcare fraud for his role in a durable medical equipment (DME) scheme. As alleged in the indictment, Riggins was the owner of Bluewater Healthcare, a DME supply company in West Monroe, Louisiana. It is alleged that from 2018 to 2023, Riggins paid for doctors’ orders for pneumatic compression devices (PCDs), a type of DME, and tricked doctors into signing DME orders and certificates of medical necessity in order to bill for the expensive and medically unnecessary DME. In total, Riggins submitted over $3.8 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare for supplying PCDs and was reimbursed over $1.8 million.
