Kansas executive sentenced in Medicare brace scheme; teen vaping's gender gap flips; sticker shock in the nursery — Morning Medical Update

Kansas executive sentenced to 19 years in Medicare brace scheme

Telemedicine doctors were paid to sign brace orders with little or no patient contact.

Brett Blackman, 43, of Johnson County, Kansas, was sentenced Oct. 14 to 19 years in prison for his role in a scheme that billed Medicare and other federal health care programs more than $1 billion for medically unnecessary orthotic braces and other equipment, the U.S. Department of Justice said. A jury convicted him in April after a 23-day trial.

Blackman was the owner and CEO of HealthSplash, which acquired the internet platform Power Mobility Doctor Rx (DMERx) in 2017. Prosecutors said the platform generated false doctors' orders that telemedicine physicians took kickbacks to sign, with little or no interaction with the patients. Medicare was billed for braces for more than 346,000 beneficiaries, and Medicare and other insurers paid more than $450 million. Co-defendant Gary Cox was sentenced to 15 years in December 2025.

Teen vaping's gender gap flips

Regular vaping among older teenage girls is nearing the 2018-19 peak.

U.S. adolescent girls have vaped at higher rates than boys since 2021, reversing a long-standing pattern of heavier nicotine use among males, according to a study published in JAMA Pediatrics. Researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) Hollings Cancer Center analyzed national survey data from 2014 to 2024 on regular vaping among youths ages 12 to 17. Among teens ages 15 to 17, the rate for girls rose from 4.9% in 2021 to 7.8% in 2024, compared with 4.6% for boys.

The study is observational and was not designed to explain the shift. "I want pediatricians to pay attention to possible vaping, especially for their female patients," Benjamin Toll, Ph.D., director of the MUSC Health Tobacco Treatment Program, said in a news release.

Sticker shock in the nursery

Paid leave tops the list of programs parents would back to ease early childhood costs.

Eighty-one percent of parents say having a baby is more expensive than it should be, according to the latest University of Michigan Health C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health. Among parents of children ages 3 and younger, 40% describe their finances as struggling or just getting by, and 37% of that group worry about money constantly. To manage costs, 68% used secondhand baby clothes and equipment, 58% cut spending on extras and 42% worked extra hours and saved up.

Parents said they would strongly support state programs offering paid leave during pregnancy or the newborn period (73%), formula or healthy food (60%), and free or reduced-cost childcare (56%). Fifty-nine percent agreed that supporting families with young children is a good use of taxpayer dollars. Ipsos surveyed 2,027 parents in July.