More than disturbing, this story may be an emotional trigger for some. Dallas Morning News reports on the owner of a Frisco medical company who regularly directed nurses to “overdose hospice patients” with drugs such as morphine to “speed up their deaths and maximize profits.”
In an affidavit written by the FBI, Brad Harris, the founder of Novus Heath Care Services Inc., sent text messages like, “You need to make this patient go bye-bye.”
No charges have been filed against Novus or Harris. Harris, 34, did not return messages left with a receptionist and at his Frisco home.
Harris, an accountant, told a nurse to overdose three patients and directed another employee to increase a patient’s medication to four times the maximum allowed, the FBI said.
In the first case, the employee refused to follow the alleged instructions, the agent wrote in the affidavit. The document does not say whether the other three patients were actually harmed.
Harris also told other health care executives over a lunch meeting that he wanted to “find patients who would die within 24 hours,” and made comments like, “if this f— would just die,” an FBI agent wrote in the warrant.
Given the above assertions, it’s turns the stomach to read the company’s website mission statement.
“We have a saying at Novus, be fast and treat people the way we would want to be treated. This encourages us to go the extra mile to make patients feel comfortable and secure about their special needs and requests.”
Scott Gordon with NBCDFW.com emphasizes that health care providers do not necessarily make more money for longer hospice stays. They are subject to an “aggregator cap,” which limits Medicare and Medicaid payments based on the yearly average hospice stay. In an affidavit, the FBI says the provider can be forced to pay back part of their payments to the government if patients live longer.
“Hence, hospice providers have an incentive to enroll patients whose hospice stays will be short relative to the cap.”
The FBI began its investigation into Novus back in October 2014 and initially focused on previous medical fraud allegations that Novus was recruiting patients “who did not qualify for services” and charged the government for services that were not medically necessary. Harris has no medical training or licenses, and would direct his employed nurses to overdose hospice patients with palliative medications such as morphine to hasten death, and thereby minimize Novus’s [paybacks] under the cap. While interviewing some of Novus employees, FBI reported that Harris would decide which home care patients would be moved to hospice. He would have employees (who were not licensed doctors) to sign the certifications with the names of doctors also employed by Novus. If a patient was on hospice care for too long, thus ultimately costing Novus, Harris would direct the patient back to home health, “irrespective of whether the patient needed continued hospice care.”
In a lunch meeting, the FBI said, Harris asked two health care executives to “find patients who would die within 24 hours” because that would “save my ass toward the cap.”
Speaking of one of his patients, Harris said “words to the effect of, ‘If this f— would just die.’”
This story almost seems surreal. It’s like something we’d see in a horror movie. Gordon adds the FBI is working with investigators from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which provides health benefits for people 65 and older. Medicaid is mostly funded by federal tax dollars to provide healthcare for the poor.
Once again, the poor become the victims of extreme medical, corporate, and political corruption. It’s so important for a story like this to surface, be republished, and be shared throughout social media. Awareness is the first step to change.
For Full Story: NBCDFW.com.
For more information about elder abuse, visit government agency: The National Center on Elder Abuse (NCEA)
Here is an LTV2 YouTube blog clip that includes further discussion of the story