The Scooter Store Closes Down for Good
The Scooter Store, a Texas-based company which delivers "freedom and independence" for people with disability, has closed down, reports San Antonio News Express.
The Scooter Store is said to be "furloughing" all of its 370 employees. The decision came about after the company received a notice from the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The notice stated that starting October 26, the Scooter Score would lose its federal contract for reimbursement of the sale of its products, says CBS News.
On the same day the announcement was made, the company also held an auction at its former headquarters in New Braunfels. Furniture, fixtures and equipments except scooters will be sold. According to News 4 San Antonio, some of the things that will be sold are flat screen televisions, computers and office furniture.
"The Scooter Store team worked long and diligently to develop a new path forward for the company," the company said in the statement. "During these last months, our employees worked tirelessly to service existing patients and customers responsibly. Every effort has been made."
The company has been the leading provider of power mobility equipment in the form of wheelchairs and motorized scooters. It used to employ more than 2400 people until it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in April.
Brian Setzer, a former employee of the company claims that the Scooter Store aimed at "bulldozing" doctors to write prescriptions for power mobility equipments even though seniors have no need for them.
"They pushed the doctors so hard that they didn't want anything to do with you. They were just pushing harder and harder to get chairs sold," Setzer told CBS.
Last year, the power mobility equipment company was found to have overbilled Medicare by $108 million from 2009 to 2012. In 2005, the Scooter Store was also sued by the US Justice Department for enticing senior citizens to purchase power scooters they did not want or need. Such power scooters were paid for by Medicare.