Brad Harris, founder of a hospice care company in Texas instructed nurses who were employees of the company, to overdose patients to increase their profits, according to KXAS-TV.
Harris, an accountant with no health training gave orders to several nurses to “overdose hospice patients with palliative medications such as morphine to hasten death.”
The nurse refused to carry out the order and resigned instead. It isn't clear what transpired with the patients once she left.
Harris also said during a lunch meeting "find patient who would die within 24 hours." and "If this f- would just die," according to the FBI
In 2013 Harris ordered another nurse via text message to “increase patient’s medication dosage to approximately four times the maximum allowed.”
He has also been accused of ordering his employees to fake the signatures of doctors who worked for him, to decide which patients would be transferred from Novus Home Care to palliative hospice care with the company.
The company was founded in 2012 and has been under investigation since 2014. Harris has been allegedly billing the government for services with patients who didn't qualify.
“If a patient was on hospice care for too long, Harris would direct the patient be moved back to home health, irrespective of whether the patient needed continued hospice care,” according to a former employee.
If a patient was in hospice care for what he considered “too long,” Harris allegedly ordered nurses, via text message to “make [them] go bye-bye” He also allegedly asked others to “find patients who would die within 24 hours.”
There is an incentive provided by Medicare and Medicaid awarded to providers if patients receiving hospice care die sooner. If a patient lives past a certain time it is required that the company reimburse the government a portion of the reimbursement.
So far Harris has not been charged, but authorities have seized emails and DVDs from his Frisco office.
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