Iowa Nurse Practitioner Agrees to Pay Over $50,000 to Resolve Suit Alleging Fraudulent Durable Medical Equipment (DME) Prescriptions, Kickbacks

Ashley Brown, DNP, ARNP, from Des Moines, Iowa, has agreed to pay $52,560 to the United States to resolve allegations that she violated the False Claims Act, 31 U.S.C. § 3729, by signing hundreds of medically unnecessary prescriptions for expensive orthotic braces in exchange for kickback payments of $20 per patient. The full claims against Brown are contained in a Civil Complaint filed earlier this month in the United States District Court in Cedar Rapids.

"Our office will aggressively pursue any medical providers that seek to profit by outsourcing their medical decision-making," said Timothy T. Duax, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Iowa. "We will continue to work with our federal and state partners to identify and hold these providers accountable to the public."

The complaint alleged that from approximately April 17, 2020, to May 19, 2021, Brown, an advanced registered nurse practitioner, knowingly caused the submission of over $1 million in false claims to Medicare. Specifically, the complaint alleged that Brown wrote hundreds of prescriptions for orthotic braces that were unreasonable, not medically necessary, and in contravention of both state and federal law. The complaint refers to several patients who stated that they did not know Brown and did not need or request the orthotic braces Brown prescribed to them, including an Elkhart resident to whom Brown prescribed a left knee brace even though the patient's left leg had been amputated years prior.

The complaint alleged that Brown spent as little as nine seconds reviewing patient records before approving the braces. Brown is alleged to have falsely represented she established valid prescriber/patient relationships when, in fact, she had no contact with her 'patients' at all. The complaint also alleged Brown received $20 per patient reviewed, sometimes resulting in Brown receiving hundreds of dollars for mere minutes of review.

The claims asserted against Brown are allegations only; there was no determination of liability.

The case was handled by Assistant United States Attorney Brandon J. Gray and was investigated by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General.

Court file information at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl.

The case file number is 1:24-cv-00036.

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