A Johnson County CEO was sentenced Wednesday, Oct. 14, to 19 years in federal prison for a $1 billion Medicare fraud scheme.

Brett Blackman, 43, owned and ran HealthSplash, the company behind an internet platform that generated false doctors' orders and prescriptions to defraud Medicare and other federal health care programs, Fox 4 reported.

Blackman's conviction followed a 23-day jury trial that ended in April. A jury found him guilty of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud, conspiracy to pay and receive kickbacks, and conspiracy to defraud the United States and make false statements in connection with health care matters.

The scheme centered on an internet platform called DMERx, known as Power Mobility Doctor Rx, LLC. HealthSplash acquired DMERx in September 2017, according to court documents cited at trial. The platform generated false doctors' orders for durable medical equipment, or DME, and prescriptions for other items.

According to court documents and trial evidence, Blackman and his co-conspirators targeted hundreds of thousands of Medicare beneficiaries nationwide, pushing them to accept medically unnecessary orthotic braces and other items. They then arranged for telemedicine doctors to sign bogus prescription orders so co-conspirators could bill Medicare.

Blackman connected pharmacies, DME suppliers and marketers with telemedicine companies that accepted illegal kickbacks and bribes in exchange for signed doctors' orders created through DMERx, according to WIBW. Blackman and his co-conspirators took a cut of each referral.

The fraudulent orders falsely claimed that doctors had examined and treated patients. In many cases, doctors were paid to sign orders based on a brief phone call or no interaction at all, the Justice Department said.

An undercover federal agent posed as a Medicare beneficiary and testified about the scheme at trial. A foreign call center pushed the agent to agree to multiple braces. A doctor then signed bogus orders through DMERx, claiming to have conducted in-person tests on a patient the doctor never spoke with.

The total was staggering. Suppliers and pharmacies paying illegal kickbacks billed Medicare and other insurers more than $1 billion. Medicare and other insurers paid more than $450 million on those claims, according to trial evidence cited by Fox 4. Medicare was fraudulently billed for orthotic braces for more than 346,000 beneficiaries—an average of four braces per beneficiary, according to the Justice Department.

Blackman and his co-conspirators concealed the operation through sham contracts and by removing references to telemedicine from doctors' orders to avoid Medicare audits, according to trial evidence.

"The defendant's fraud scheme lured hundreds of thousands of elderly and disabled Americans into a sophisticated international telemarketing system with one goal: stealing as much as possible from the Medicare trust fund," Assistant Attorney General Colin M. McDonald of the Justice Department's National Fraud Enforcement Division said in a statement.

Blackman's co-defendant, Gary Cox, identified as 79 at his December 2025 sentencing, of Maricopa County, Arizona, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for his role in the same conspiracy. Cox served as CEO of DMERx, according to the Justice Department.

The FBI, the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG), the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service investigated the case.

Blackman's restitution and forfeiture obligations will be determined at a later date.