JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Duval DOGE has a new target: The city’s Telehealth provider Telescope.
Councilmember Rory Diamond (R-District 13) claims he’s received several tips that the company could be involved in Medicaid and Medicare fraud, but isn’t giving any specifics beyond that at this point.
Telescope is the city’s Telehealth provider that aims to divert the uninsured away from emergency rooms and towards Telehealth services.
The company’s contract with the city was subjected to a lot of scrutiny during this past budget cycle.
Councilmember Ron Salem (R-Group 2 At-Large) wanted to completely defund the program and questioned why the city was spending $1.5 million on a service the hospitals themselves weren’t invested in.
“My comment has always been, if we’re diverting indigent admissions away from those facilities, why are they not contributing to this program?” Salem said.
Despite the money making it into this year’s budget, the controversy is far from finished.
Councilmember Diamond wrote a letter calling for a special meeting of the Duval DOGE committee to look into what he described as “potential serious misuse of taxpayer funds, wrongdoing, and potential illegal conduct” related to Telescope.
“I have three concerns I’d like to get to the bottom of. One is, do we have a contract for millions of dollars that we shouldn’t have, that we could get the service for free? Two is, are there conflicts of interest within our vendors? And third is, you know, is the city in any way involved with Medicare or Medicaid fraud?” Diamond said.
The mayor’s office claimed the Telehealth initiative has saved families thousands and the healthcare system millions of dollars.
It also pushed back on Diamond’s suggestion of a conflict of interest.
“The virtual safety-net telehealth program now known as Healthlink Jax was competitively bid through an open and transparent RFP process, which resulted in Telescope Health being awarded the contract over two other proposals,” a spokesperson for the mayor’s office said in an emailed statement.
That claim is backed up by the finding of an Inspect General’s report from September of this year that looked into allegations of preference given to Telescope during the RFP process.
The report concluded, “It was clear that the contract was completed adequately” and found no evidence to substantiate the accusations.
Diamond said he’s not ready to provide specifics of who may be involved or the alleged illegal conduct.
An emergency meeting has been set for Wednesday, in which Diamond plans to call for an investigation to determine the validity of those accusations.
“Then we can get to the facts. I mean, just like with the JEA scandal, like, you’ve got to start with the facts, the documents, and then you can figure out what happened, so the people of Jacksonville know their government is honest,” said Diamond.
Action News Jax did reach out to Telescope, asking for comment on the accusations laid out by Councilman Diamond.
We are awaiting a response.
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