Also called: free back brace scam · Medicare brace scam · durable medical equipment fraud · DME fraud · orthotic brace telemarketing fraud · telemedicine brace fraud
Medicare brace fraud starts with a cold call offering "free" braces. A telemedicine doctor who never examined the patient signs the order, and a medical equipment supplier bills Medicare or a Medicare Advantage plan. Orders are bought and sold between companies. A Texas case billed $61.5 million and ended in a 150-month sentence; Operation Brace Yourself alleged $1.2 billion in 2019.
What it is
Someone calls a Medicare beneficiary, or sends a postcard, and offers a back, knee or other brace that Medicare
will supposedly pay for. If the person shows interest, the caller asks for their Medicare number. A doctor who
has not examined them signs an order, a medical equipment supplier ships the brace and bills Medicare or a
Medicare Advantage plan, and the people who produced the order and found the patient are paid. The Tennessee
Department of Commerce and Insurance warned in 2019 that the aim is to bill the government for unnecessary
equipment, steal the recipient’s personal information, or both.
How it actually works
The cold call
A telemarketer cold-calls Medicare beneficiaries who did not ask for anything, sometimes from an overseas call
center. In the documented cases the centers were in the Philippines and Egypt. Callers may say the brace is
free, or that your doctor already called about it, and may claim to be from Medicare, a supply company or an
insurer.
The pressure
Representatives often call again after a refusal and use high-pressure tactics. The Tennessee warning
describes calls repeated several times a day to wear a person down until they order a brace to make the
calls stop.
The Medicare number
If the person shows interest, the caller asks for their Medicare number or other sensitive information.
Where it could have stopped
The Tennessee warning is direct: Medicare does not make unsolicited calls offering products or services, and it generally covers braces only when a doctor has approved and ordered them. A caller who offers one is not describing how coverage works.
An order from a doctor who never saw the patient
A telemedicine company supplies a doctor’s order. In the documented cases, doctors often issued boilerplate
authorizations based only on call recordings and in many cases never spoke with the beneficiary, and in one
case a witness testified that some orders carried the forged signatures of doctors who did not know.
The order is sold on
Orders are bought and sold. In the cases here, one defendant paid illegitimate telemedicine companies for
orders and sold them to other suppliers, and another sold signed orders to marketing companies that often
resold them to brace companies.
The braces arrive
Thousands of unneeded items were sent to beneficiaries in one case. In another, providers signed orders for
four or more braces each for over 3,000 beneficiaries, and more than 40 beneficiaries received orders for 10
or more.
The bill
The supplier bills Medicare or a Medicare Advantage plan. The amounts billed and the amounts paid differ: in
the Florida case about $35 million was billed and more than $19 million paid, and in the Wilson case over $56
million was billed and over $27.9 million paid.
Prosecution years later
Operation Brace Yourself was announced in April 2019. The sentences documented here were announced between
February and August 2026, and one defendant pleaded guilty in 2021 and was sentenced in 2026.
Why it works
A free offer asks for a number, not money. There is nothing to pay, so there is nothing to haggle over. The
caller wants the Medicare number, which is what the supplier needs to bill, and the Tennessee warning lists
that request as the point at which the call turns.
Persistence does the selling. In the Florida case, representatives often called again after refusals. In
the Texas case, recordings played at trial captured pressure on beneficiaries who had protested that they did
not need or want the items.
The doctor’s order is the paper that makes the bill look legitimate. In the cases here, orders were
produced without examining the patient, bought from telemedicine companies, sold on, and in one case
allegedly forged.
Overseas call centers put distance between the calls and the people billing. Prosecutors described call
centers in the Philippines, Egypt and, in the 2019 takedown reporting, Latin America.
The same pattern keeps appearing. Operation Brace Yourself charged two dozen people in 2019 and put the
alleged losses at $1.2 billion. Sentences in related cases were still being announced in 2026.
Where it comes from
Entirely domestic in who pays, since the payers are Medicare and Medicare Advantage, with calls made from
the United States and overseas call centers.
Operation Brace Yourself, April 2019. NBC News reported that two dozen people were charged, including
doctors and owners of medical equipment companies, and that prosecutors put the total losses at $1.2
billion. Charges were brought in several states, including New Jersey, California, Texas and Florida, and
the probe involved the FBI, the IRS and 17 US attorney’s offices. Charges are allegations, the people
charged are presumed innocent unless convicted, and this page does not say how each of those cases ended.
The cases continue. The three cases documented here were announced as sentenced in February, March and
July 2026, and the Inspector General’s website lists a further sentence in Boston on August 20, 2026, in a
$110 million scheme involving medically unnecessary equipment including back and knee braces.
Operators range from a telemedicine owner to a network of suppliers. One defendant owned dozens of
equipment companies, another owned two telemedicine companies, and another a marketing company that ran
telemarketing.
Real cases
2026 US Sentenced $19.0m
Michael Kochen, 42, of Aventura, Florida, who owned dozens of durable medical equipment companies, and Sandro Herek, 56, of Coral Springs, Florida, a telemarketing company owner, were convicted at trial. About $35 million in false claims for medically unnecessary back, knee, shoulder and ankle braces were submitted to Medicare Advantage plans, which paid more than $19 million on them. Kochen paid kickbacks to Herek and others to recruit beneficiaries and to telemedicine companies to obtain prescription orders. Herek oversaw overseas call centers, including in Egypt, that cold-called beneficiaries. In July 2026 Kochen was sentenced to 204 months in federal prison and Herek to 92 months.
Read the case file ·
2 sources
2026 US Sentenced $30.2m
Robert "Bobby" Leon Smith III, 50, of Archer City, Texas, pleaded guilty four days into a jury trial in March 2025 to a $61.5 million health care fraud and wire fraud conspiracy. Deceptive telemarketing, using an offshore call center in the Philippines, targeted Medicare beneficiaries nationwide and led to thousands of orthotic braces, foot baths and genetic tests they did not need being sent. Smith's seven durable medical equipment companies in Florida, Texas and Maryland billed Medicare for the braces and foot baths. He absconded before sentencing and was at large for more than a month before the US Marshals Service apprehended him. He was sentenced to 150 months in prison, ordered to pay $30,158,608.25 in restitution and to forfeit $9,215,225 and real estate in Texas.
Read the case file ·
1 source
2026 US Sentenced $27.9m
Reinaldo Wilson, 57, formerly of Richmond Hill, Georgia, owned and operated two telemedicine companies in Bayonne, New Jersey between 2017 and 2019. He and others paid kickbacks to medical providers to sign orders for orthotic braces that Medicare beneficiaries did not need, then sold the signed orders to purported marketing companies, which often resold them to brace companies that billed Medicare. More than $56 million in false claims were submitted and Medicare paid over $27.9 million. Wilson pleaded guilty in March 2021 to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and health care fraud and was sentenced in February 2026 to seven years in prison and $27.9 million in restitution.
Read the case file ·
1 source
Red flags
- An unsolicited call, postcard or ad offering a free brace that Medicare will pay for.
- A caller who says your doctor already called about it, or who claims to be from Medicare, a supply company or an insurer.
- Repeated calls, several times a day, after you have said no.
- A request for your Medicare number to send the brace.
- A brace or other equipment in the post that you did not order.
- A doctor named on the paperwork whom you have never met.
- Medicare statements listing equipment you did not need or did not receive.
If it’s happening to you
If you have been called, or have received equipment you did not order:
- Hang up, or let unknown numbers go to voicemail. Caller ID can be spoofed, and legitimate companies
usually leave a voicemail.
- Do not give your Medicare number or other personal information to a caller who contacted you.
- Refuse delivery or return items you did not order, and keep a record of the sender’s name and the
return date, as the Tennessee warning advises.
- Check your Medicare Summary Notice or Explanation of Benefits for equipment you did not need or did
not receive.
- Report it to 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227), the HHS Office of Inspector General at 1-800-HHS-TIPS
(1-800-447-8477), or your Senior Medicare Patrol at 1-866-836-7677. See where to report for agencies in other countries.
Where the money goes
Entirely domestic: from Medicare and Medicare Advantage plans into the equipment suppliers’ accounts, and
from there to the people who produced the orders and the calls.
The payer’s money goes to the supplier that billed it. In the documented cases the supplier then paid for the
parts of the chain it needed: kickbacks and bribes to telemedicine companies for orders in the Texas case,
kickbacks to the telemarketer and to telemedicine companies in the Florida case, and payments to providers
for signed orders in the Wilson case. In the Texas case the court ordered forfeiture of $9,215,225 and real
estate in Texas, and in the 2019 takedown NBC reported that proceeds were allegedly laundered through
international shell companies and used to buy exotic cars, yachts and luxury real estate.
By the numbers
No published dataset breaks this scheme out as its own category yet, so there is no chart to show.
The data page explains which agency categories exist and why some schemes are
invisible in official statistics.
Every factual claim above traces to one of these. Statistics are reported losses; see
methodology for what that does and does not measure.
