Doctors who never really met their patients signed the orders, and the man who sold those orders to equipment suppliers and labs was sentenced Friday to 20 years in federal prison. Christopher Harwood, 44, of Fort Lauderdale, owned the telemedicine company TelevisitMD and several Florida medical-equipment suppliers. The Justice Department says he must also repay $17,942,402 to Medicare.
The department says co-conspirators ran aggressive telemarketing campaigns aimed at Medicare patients, pushing them to accept orthotic braces and genetic tests they did not need. Harwood paid doctors to approve the orders. Those doctors, prosecutors say, ignored Medicare’s telemedicine rules, had no real medical relationship with the patients and often signed without any meaningful interaction…