A federal jury in Florida convicted the man behind one of the largest Medicare fraud operations ever prosecuted in the state. Brett Blackman, the 42-year-old founder and CEO of a health care software company called HealthSplash, owned and controlled a platform that generated fabricated medical prescriptions.
The system produced bogus doctors’ orders for medical equipment that patients never needed and in many cases had never requested. The conspiracy pushed more than $1 billion in false claims through Medicare and other federal health care programs over several years.
Taxpayers ultimately covered more than $450 million in payouts for durable medical equipment that served absolutely no legitimate medical purpose. If you receive Medicare benefits or pay federal taxes, this case reveals the staggering cost of organized fraud inside public health programs.
Brett Blackman’s HealthSplash conviction exposes a $1 billion Medicare billing scheme
Blackman, a Johnson County, Kansas, resident, owned HealthSplash, which purchased the internet-based ordering platform DMERx in September 2017, according to the Department of Justice. That platform routinely generated fabricated prescriptions and doctors’ orders for durable medical equipment.
This was not health care. It was a billion-dollar fraud machine…The defendant built and operated a platform that generated false doctors’ orders, used foreign call centers to target seniors, and helped push medically unnecessary equipment through Medicare and other federal health care programs.
The Medicare beneficiaries targeted by the scheme did not need this equipment and often had never requested it from anyone. Blackman connected pharmacies, equipment suppliers, and marketers with telemedicine companies that accepted bribes and kickbacks for signing fraudulent orders, the DOJ stated.
The doctors who were paid through the scheme signed these orders without conducting any meaningful examinations of the listed patients. Some of those doctors signed prescriptions for patients they had never spoken with or evaluated in any capacity, federal prosecutors confirmed.
How foreign call centers and spam mailers targeted hundreds of thousands of Medicare beneficiaries
The operation used overseas call centers and mass-mailed advertisements to pressure Medicare beneficiaries into accepting medical supplies they never requested. Assistant Attorney General Colin M. McDonald of the DOJ’s National Fraud Enforcement Division said Blackman ‘orchestrated a massive telemarketing scheme’ that used foreign call centers and spam mailers to target seniors.
Federal investigators uncovered the full scope of the scheme, in part through an undercover agent who posed as a Medicare beneficiary, trial evidence confirmed. That undercover operation showed how the call center pressured the agent into accepting multiple orthotic braces before routing the order to a doctor.
The doctor signed orders through DMERx claiming to have performed in-person physical tests that never took place, trial testimony revealed. Blackman and his associates disguised the illegal referral payments through sham contracts and manipulated the doctors’ orders to evade Medicare audit systems, the evidence presented at trial demonstrated.
Blackman faces up to 30 years after conviction on three federal conspiracy charges
The jury found Blackman guilty on three counts, including conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud, the DOJ confirmed. The remaining two charges cover kickback conspiracy and conspiracy to defraud the United States government through false health care statements.
The primary fraud and wire fraud conviction alone carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison for Blackman. Each of the two additional conspiracy charges carries a maximum sentence of 5 years, bringing the total potential sentence to 30 years.
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Blackman may also face substantial financial penalties in addition to prison time. Federal sentencing guidelines in health care fraud cases typically require restitution to the programs defrauded, and with more than $450 million in confirmed payouts tied to the scheme, the court could order Blackman to repay a significant portion of those losses.
Gary Cox, who served as CEO of DMERx and was Blackman’s co-defendant, was convicted in a separate trial in June 2025. Cox has already received a 15-year federal prison sentence for his participation in the overall fraud scheme, the Justice Department noted.
A federal district court judge will determine Blackman’s sentence at a hearing currently scheduled for August 26, 2026, after reviewing sentencing guidelines.
Federal health care fraud enforcement has charged over 6,200 defendants since 2007
The conviction lands during a period of intensified federal enforcement, as the DOJ’s Health Care Fraud Strike Force has charged over 6,200 defendants since 2007. Those defendants collectively billed federal health care programs and private insurers more than $45 billion, the Justice Department confirmed.
The Government Accountability Office has labeled Medicare a high-risk program, in part because of its deep vulnerability to organized fraud schemes. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services estimated that it prevented $11.9 billion in potentially fraudulent Medicare payments between fiscal years 2022 and 2024, according to an April 2026 Government Accountability Office report.
The DOJ announced its largest health care fraud takedown in June 2025, charging 324 defendants linked to $14.6 billion in alleged fraud. Federal prosecutors have argued that every dollar lost to fraud diverts funding from legitimate patient care.
Medicare beneficiaries face growing risks from telehealth and equipment fraud schemes.
The HealthSplash case reveals a fraud model that turned telemedicine systems into tools for exploiting vulnerable populations and draining federal programs. The 2025 National Health Care Fraud Takedown charged 49 defendants with $1.17 billion in fraudulent telehealth and genetic testing claims alone, a sign that schemes built on remote prescribing and DME billing have become a dominant fraud category.
Acting Deputy Inspector General for Investigations Scott J. Lampert of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General said the defendant’s actions severely undermined the integrity of the Medicare program.
The FBI, HHS Office of Inspector General, Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General, and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service all collaborated on the investigation, reflecting how widely these schemes now span federal benefit programs.
Blackman’s sentencing on August 26 will determine how much of the $450 million in fraudulent payouts he is ordered to repay and whether his prison term approaches the 30-year statutory maximum or tracks closer to the 15-year sentence handed down to his co-defendant, Gary Cox.
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