The FBI has raided a Frisco hospice whose owner is accused of ordering high doses of medication to its patients in order to hurry their deaths and boost profits.
As KXAS Channel 5 first reported, an FBI affidavit alleged that Novus Health Services founder Brad Harris encouraged higher than normal doses to at least four patients, sending employees texts like “you need to make this patient go bye-bye” and telling administrators to “find patients who would die within 24 hours.”
As the feds note in the affidavit, Medicare and Medicaid subject hospices to an aggregator cap, which limits reimbursements based on annual average stays. As such, the FBI alleges that “hospice providers have an incentive to enroll patients whose hospice stays will be short relative to the cap.” Harris has not been charged with a crime, although the FBI has been investigating his company since October 2014. The feds were originally looking into whether Novus was providing services for patients who did not qualify and was billing the government for medically unnecessary claims.
What it found was instances of Harris, who is not a healthcare practitioner, directing nurses to overdose at least four patients. The search warrant includes quotes from Harris regarding the aggregator cap, saying that patients who would die within 24 hours of admittance would really “save my ass toward the cap.” The affidavit doesn’t include whether any patients were harmed, although at least one employee refused to follow the alleged orders.
Novus did not return a message requesting comment.
