The Duval County DOGE committee has approved a list of questions and documents requests for Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan's office, Telescope Health and others in its investigation of alleged fraud in the city’s telehealth program.
During a meeting Tuesday of the Jacksonville City Council’s DOGE committee, council member Rory Diamond released his questions in a five-page document.
Diamond initially called for an investigation from what he says are phone tips he fielded alleging wrongdoing related to Telescope, which operates Healthlink Jax, the free virtual health care service provided by the city.
Diamond is asking for any communications from July 1, 2023, through present between Deegan’s administration and Telescope; the city’s indigent care provider UF Health; Baptist Health Jacksonville's emergency room staffing contractor Emergency Resource Group; Jacksonville Fire and Rescue; and the city’s 911 telehealth referral company RightSite Health Inc.
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DOGE also will ask Telescope and the Deegan administration questions related to what Diamond says could be perceived as conflicts of interest with overlap in the leadership and employees of Telescope and Emergency Resources Group.
Diamond and DOGE Chair Ron Salem also have questioned — without releasing evidence — the accuracy of the $11.1 million figure Telescope says the free telehealth program has saved emergency room operators in costs related to treating the indigent.
Telescope said Healthlink Jax, which began operating for the city in 2024, is for uninsured people and does not bill Medicare and Medicaid. Diamond says he wants to make sure no federally insured patients who could be receiving health care through a private operator are getting through the cracks.
“Uninsured means they don’t have any health care provided by the federal government or a private entity or state government at all. That was the purpose of the contract. And so, I want to know what controls Telescope has to make sure that when they’re intaking patients, that they really are indigent in that way, and that there are not Medicare or Medicaid patients receiving city-funded services,” Diamond said.
Salem said he also wants to know all the sources of Telescope's referrals.
Telescope told Jacksonville Today last week that the Diamond/DOGE allegations are false. The Deegan administration continues to tout the Healthlink Jax program as a money saver for both Jacksonville-area emergency rooms and uninsured patients. The administration defends the competitive process for requesting proposals to selected Telescope Health. The city’s inspector general upheld the process.
Phil Perry, the city’s chief communications officer, told Jacksonville Today after Tuesday’s meeting that Deegan’s office will cooperate with the DOGE inquiry.
“HealthLink Jax has supported thousands of uninsured residents and saved millions of dollars on emergency room costs to meet Mayor Deegan’s goal of making health care more affordable and accessible in Jacksonville,” Perry said in an email. “This contract was awarded through an open and transparent process that has already been cleared by the Office of Inspector General. It’s unfortunate that taxpayer resources are being used to undertake a duplicative review process that is based on unsubstantiated allegations. Nonetheless, we look forward to cooperating and showing the incredible return on investment that Healthlink Jax has delivered.”
Diamond also wants to know whether the RightSite’s program — which accepts Medicaid, Medicare and the uninsured at no cost to the city — could be expanded. Telescope and the Deegan administration say the RightSite and Healthlink Jax services differ.
Salem has named Diamond to head a DOGE subcommittee that will lead the investigation over the coming months. Diamond said Tuesday that his end goal is to hand off the DOGE committee’s findings to an investigative body. He told reporters after the meeting that could be state or federal investigators or no one at all.
“The relevant ones. Could be the state attorney, could be the Florida attorney general, could be the U.S. attorney general, could be the Middle District or Florida — whoever is the right entity. If I see there’s something there, right?” Diamond said. “There may not be anything there. In which case, there would be no referral. But I suspect there will be.”
Council member Matt Carlucci has criticized the DOGE’s committee’s expanding reach. He called out the investigation during the council’s Technology, Energy and Utilities Committee meeting on Tuesday.
He told Jacksonville Today that the DOGE committee has become a “political weapon.”
“At the last meeting, the chair wouldn’t even let the telehealth providers speak, and council members who aren’t on the committee were silenced, too. That’s heavy-handed and unfair,” Carlucci wrote in a text message. “We’re dragging good medical professionals through the mud on hearsay, while sidelining our Rules and Finance committees. ... It pains me to see the institution mismanaged this way.”
