Foreign Call Centers to Signed Orders: HealthSplash Owner Convicted in $1 Billion Medicare Brace Scheme

The verdict

On May 14, 2026, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that a federal jury in the Southern District of Florida had convicted Brett Blackman, 42, of Johnson County, Kansas, the founder and owner of HealthSplash. The convictions were for conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud, conspiracy to pay and receive health care kickbacks, and conspiracy to defraud the United States and make false statements in connection with health care matters.

Sentencing was set for August 26, 2026. Co-defendant Gary Cox was convicted in an earlier trial and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

How the scheme worked

According to court documents and trial evidence, as described by DOJ:

• Blackman owned and ran HealthSplash, which bought Power Mobility Doctor Rx, LLC (DMERx) in September 2017. DMERx was an internet platform that generated false doctors' orders for durable medical equipment (DME) and prescriptions for other items.
• Blackman and his co-conspirators went after hundreds of thousands of Medicare beneficiaries to get them to accept medically unnecessary orthotic braces and other items.
• The Assistant Attorney General of DOJ's National Fraud Enforcement Division said Blackman "orchestrated a massive telemarketing scheme that used foreign call centers and spam mailers to target our country's senior citizens."
• Pharmacies, DME suppliers and marketers were connected with telemedicine companies that took kickbacks for signed orders created on DMERx. Blackman and his co-conspirators took a cut.
• Orders falsely said a doctor had examined and treated the beneficiary. In fact, doctors were paid to sign without meaningful contact, sometimes with no contact at all.
• The scheme was concealed with sham contracts and by manipulating orders to avoid Medicare audits.

The undercover call

An undercover agent posing as a Medicare beneficiary testified to how it worked. It started with a foreign call center that pushed the agent to agree to multiple braces, and ended with a doctor signing bogus orders through DMERx. One order claimed the doctor had performed tests that can only be done in person, though the doctor never spoke with the agent.

The money

DME suppliers and pharmacies paying kickbacks billed Medicare and other insurers more than $1 billion and were paid more than $450 million.

The case was investigated by the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General (VA OIG), and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS).

The bottom line:

A jury convicted the owner of a health care software company whose platform, according to DOJ, turned foreign call center pitches to seniors into signed brace orders, producing more than $1 billion in claims.

Key takeaways

1. Foreign call centers were the first step in the chain.
2. An undercover call showed the scheme from start to finish.
3. The platform owner was convicted, not just the callers and suppliers.
4. Sham contracts and audit-dodging were part of the case.
5. A co-defendant got 15 years in an earlier trial.