Posted on 04/15/2013 4:08:48 PM PDT by SMGFan
If you watch daytime TV or have been stuck watching daytime TV while visiting your parents, surely you’re familiar with The Scooter Store. The power wheelchair vendor has had some trouble lately, including accusations of Medicare and Medicaid fraud, a raid by the FBI, and even a lawsuit from the company’s hometown, of New Braunfels, Texas. The company laid off most of its employees, and plans to deal directly with health care providers, rather than blanketing the airwaves and selling directly to consumers.
Those investigations came after a scathing investigative piece by CBS News about the company. (Warning: the video at that link plays automatically.) Former salesmen and doctors who prescribed chairs in the past explained the company’s tactics: contact doctors’ offices incessantly to wear them down and convince them to prescribe scooters and power chairs whether the patient really needed one or not, and to depend on bureaucratic incompetence and error to get them approved by Medicare and Medicaid.
(Excerpt) Read more at consumerist.com ...
Doctors bend to pharmceuticals, too. They prescribed a $40 “new” drug for me instead of the $4.00 Penicillen....for a tooth extraction.
They promised to get you a chair at no cost to you!
Some people point to radio gold ads as a sign of the top. I thought the Scooter Store was a scam from the first time I ever heard an ad.
At this point, it’s probably easier to come up with something going on in our society that’s NOT a scam. I’ll post back here when I can think of one.
I just had my wisdom teeth pulled and the drugs they prescribed worked very well for the pain. I can see how people get addicted to painkillers.
LOL.
looks like the same people filling up all handicap parking at work.
then resell on Craigslist for 200 bucks.
like screwing the govt and the taxpayers...people like me....was some kind of good thing...
besides....what dr or therapist in their right mind would encourage the obese, or those with arthritis to become even more sedentary...
its like rib belts and neck braces....they are just not ordered like the used to because the idea is to strengthen muscles, not weaken them....
I want one...help me BO! I neecmy Obamachair!
When I had cataract surgery, about 10 minutes before they gave me something in the IV which felt great.
All my aches and pains went away. Yep I would probably have gone on that permanently if they would have let me.
If we couldn’t laugh, we’d have to cry. Isn’t it amazing that stuffing one’s pie hole with trash to the point that they are no longer able to carry their own weight now qualifies as a permanent disability / handicap?!?!? For heaven’s sake, put down the fried chicken (which has now been made boneless - because tearing the fried crap from the carcus was waaaaay too much work) and doughnuts and walk a few steps. It’s no wonder that the rest of the world laughs at our society of fat, lazy, slobs - I’m beginning to as well!
tip o’ the ole iceberg
My husband is due for another wheelchair in June & he wanted the smaller scooter so now I have to find another type of wheelchair for a person 210 lbs that is small enough to get thru doors.
So far I have to changed damaged doors & many mldgs around the house due to him hitting them with his wheelchair.
Anyone that any ideas?
Giving chairs away at NO cost.. Uhhhh, nothing is free. Red flag!
Hard to believe it was as low as $48 million.
My neighbor just bought a “jazzy” from, I believe, Pride Wheelchairs to assist him with recovering from a broken hip. He paid out of pocket for it - I believe in the area of $3 to $4k with a few accessories. He is well pleased with it, and it gets around quite well with no modifications to his dwelling.
What about all those urinary catheter companies, diabetes supply companies that market directly to Medicare and Medicaid patients. They always promise to do all the paperwork and provide free home delivery.
More government spending means more waste & fraud. Anti-fraud & waste efforts only work around the margins; rooting out fraud requires more expenditures, bureaucrats, rules, policing and prosecution. In many cases, there is a backlash as honest vendors drop out of government programs because of compliance costs and the fear of audits and prosecution. This is happening right now with physicians in Medicare.
The only real solution is to cut these programs and make people spend their own money. An educated and paying customer is the best defense against fraud and waste.
Without excusing anything, some things become clear in the fullness of or by the passage of time. A decade ago, say, you or I might look at a Scooter and think “I guess it’s a good thing that this insanely obese person has a way to get around, now where’s my eyewash?” In the interim, while we were looking at other things but maybe seeing how many of these things and the people that own them are in WalMarts at any given hour, they have apparently become yet another medical cost scam.
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