Americans are all too familiar with junk mail and spam calls that target U.S. seniors to try and steal their personal information. Exploiting our natural vulnerabilities, scammers aim to create a sense of urgency or fear to cloud judgment and encourage hasty decisions – a trick that Gary Cox, CEO of Power Mobility Doctor Rx, LLC (DMERx), relied on as part of a $1 billion Medicare scheme. Cox and his co-conspirators targeted hundreds of thousands of Medicare beneficiaries who provided their personal identifiable information and agreed to accept medically unnecessary items through misleading mailers, television advertisements and calls from offshore call centers.
DMERx was an internet-based platform that generated false and fraudulent doctors’ orders for medically unnecessary orthotic braces, pain creams and other items. Cox acted as a central connector, linking pharmacies, durable medical equipment (DME) suppliers, and marketers with telemedicine companies. These telemedicine companies, in turn, accepted illegal kickbacks and bribes for signed doctors’ orders transmitted via the DMERx platform. Cox and his associates profited by coordinating these illicit transactions and funneling the completed, fraudulent orders to the DME suppliers, pharmacies, and telemarketers who paid for them.
The fraudulent doctors’ orders generated by DMERx, falsely represented that a doctor had examined and treated the Medicare beneficiaries. In fact the purported telemedicine companies paid doctors to sign the orders without regard to medical necessity, based only on a brief telephone call with the beneficiary or no interaction with the beneficiary at all. The DME suppliers and pharmacies that paid illegal kickbacks in exchange for these doctors’ orders billed Medicare and other insurers more than $1 billion. Medicare and the insurers paid more than $360 million based on these claims.
On June 8, 2025, Cox was found guilty of healthcare fraud.
Great job by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Today’s Fraud of The Day is based on article “Arizona CEO Convicted By Florida Jury In Billion-Dollar Medicare Fraud Scheme” published by Tampa Free Press on June 8, 2025.
A federal jury in Florida convicted Gary Cox, 79, the CEO of Power Mobility Doctor Rx, LLC (DMERx), on Friday for his role in a massive scheme that defrauded Medicare and other federal healthcare programs of over $1 billion. The verdict marks a significant victory for law enforcement agencies dedicated to combating healthcare fraud.
The doctors’ orders generated by DMERx falsely claimed that a physician had examined and treated the Medicare beneficiaries. In reality, the purported telemedicine companies paid doctors to sign these orders without any regard for medical necessity, often based on only a brief phone call with the beneficiary, or in some cases, no interaction at all.
