West Monroe man charged in federal court in alleged scheme to defraud Medicare | KTVE

MONROE, Louisiana (KTVE/KARD) — According to a press release from the United States Department of Justice, on Friday, June 28, 2024, United States Attorney Brown filed a criminal charge against Michael Riggins, 61, of West Monroe, Louisiana, in connection with an alleged Medicare fraud scheme.

Riggins, was charged with conspiracy to commit routine health care fraud for his role in the DME scheme. As alleged in the indictment, Riggins owns Bluewater Healthcare (“Bluewater”), a DME supply company in West Monroe.

It is alleged that between 2018 and 2023, Riggins paid for physicians' orders for pneumatic compression devices (“PCDs”), a type of DME, and deceived physicians into signing the DME orders and medical certificates necessary to order a bill for the expensive and medically unnecessary DME products.

Riggins was fined more than $3.8 million for fraudulent Medicare claims for providing PCDs and was reimbursed more than $1.8 million. These charges were part of a two-week, strategically coordinated nationwide law enforcement action that resulted in criminal charges against 147 defendants for their alleged participation in health care fraud and opioid abuse schemes that resulted in to the submission of more than $2.5 billion in alleged false invoices.

An indictment is merely an accusation, and a defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.