Brad Harris, 34, founded Novus Health Care Services, Inc. in July 2012. An FBI agent wrote in an affidavit for a search warrant that Mr. Harris regularly directed nurses to give hospice patients overdoses of drugs such as morphine to speed up their deaths and maximize profits. The FBI went on to say Mr. Harris instructed a nurse to overdose three patients and asked another employee to increase a patient’s medication to four-times the maximum allowed. Lastly, the FBI has written in the warrant that Mr. Harris told other executives that he wanted to “find patients who would die within 24 hours.”
The company states on its website that they offer hospice and home health care services. According to the website, “We have a saying at Novus, be fast and treat people the way we would want to be treated. This encourages us to go the extra mile to make patients feel comfortable and secure about their special needs and requests.” According to the FBI, hospices are subjected to an aggregator cap, which limits Medicare and Medicaid payments based on the yearly average hospice stay. Therefore, if a patient lives too long, the health care provider can be forced to reimburse part of their payments to the government. The FBI’s affidavit went on to explain, “Hence, hospice providers have an incentive to enroll patients whose hospice stays will be short relative to the cap.”
When someone is injured or dies due to a health care provider’s negligence, financial recovery may be available. Such recovery is particularly important when permanent, life changing injuries are incurred. It is important to contact someone who understands the intricacies of the party’s right to recover.
Medical malpractice is a difficult area of law as it requires an understanding of both the legal practice and the mechanics of medicine. Abraham Watkins offers a free consultation to anyone wishing to pursue such claims.