Federal and state agents executed a search warrant Wednesday at the New Braunfels, Texas headquarters of national power mobility provider The Scooter Store.
Federal authorities have yet to comment on the raid but a report from the San Antonio Express-News said that an unnamed source with knowledge of the investigation claimed that The Scooter Store was being investigated on how it bills for its equipment.
To that end, authorities also executed a search warrant at a San Antonio-based information management services firm where The Scooter Store keeps data records.
Roughly 150 law enforcement officials from the FBI, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Inspector General, and the Texas attorney general’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit searched the Scooter Store’s offices. Most employees were told to leave, but some employees — most likely members of executive management — were told to stay, the Express-News reported.
Recently, the company laid off 150 employees of its 1,800-member workforce in the wake of CMS’s announcement of the Round Two bid rates, and had laid off another 220 in September. It also entered into a deal with CMS to return $19.5 million of what an auditor found to be between $46.8 million and $87.7 million in overpayments it received during 2009 to 2011.
The provider is well known for its television advertisements enticing customers to have Medicare and Medicaid pay for their power mobility devices.