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November 8, 2019

Lenox Hill Hospital and its corporate parent, Northwell Health, Inc., have agreed to pay $12.3 million for violating the Stark Law and False Claims Act in submissions to Medicare.  From 2013 to 2018, Lenox Hill paid the chair of its urology department, Dr. David Samadi, a salary and bonus that improperly took into account the value of his referrals and grossly exceeded fair market value.  In an effort to maximize revenue-generating surgeries, Samadi was repeatedly scheduled to perform overlapping surgeries, leaving patients with unsupervised medical residents in violation of both hospital and Medicare rules.  The department also billed Medicare for minor procedures performed in operating rooms with an unnecessarily full operating room staff.  USAO SDNY

Tagged in: Anti-Kickback and Stark, FCA Federal, Healthcare Fraud, Hospital Fraud, Improper Medical Personnel, Medicare,

November 8, 2019

In the eleventh settlement involving the multi-state OK Compounding Pharmacy fraud scheme, podiatrist Jonathan Moore of Kentucky has agreed to pay $65,404 for the role he played in defrauding federal healthcare programs.  In exchange for illegal kickbacks disguised as “medical director fees,” Dr. Moore allegedly prescribed medically unnecessary compounded pain creams to patients, many of whom were insured by Medicare and TRICARE.  USAO NDOK

Tagged in: Anti-Kickback and Stark, Compounding Pharmacy Fraud, FCA Federal, Healthcare Fraud, Lack of Medical Necessity, Medicare, Other Government Health Programs, Pharma Fraud,

November 7, 2019

Medical device manufacturer Life Spine Inc. has agreed to pay $5.5 million to settle fraud allegations stemming from a qui tam suit, with founder and CEO Michael Butler agreeing pay another $375,000, and VP of business development Richard Greiber agreeing to pay another $115,000.  As part of the settlement, the defendants admitted to paying kickbacks to surgeons and entities between 2012 and 2018 in exchange for their use of Life Spine’s spinal implants, devices, and equipment.  USAO SDNY

Tagged in: Anti-Kickback and Stark, Healthcare Fraud, Medicaid, Medical Devices and DME, Medicare, Whistleblower Case,

November 7, 2019

Compound drug ingredient supplier Fagron Holding USA LLC has agreed to pay over $22 million to resolve two qui tam suits involving three of Fagron’s wholly-owned subsidiaries.  According to whistleblowers, Freedom Pharmaceuticals Inc. grossly inflated the price of active pharmaceutical ingredients used in compound prescriptions, causing pharmacy customers to submit false claims to TRICARE.  Other allegations involved subsidiaries Pharmacy Services Inc. and B&B Pharmaceuticals Inc., which were accused of submitting false claims to federal healthcare programs, manipulating prescription drug pricing, paying kickbacks to physicians, and illegally waiving patient copays.  DOJ

Tagged in: Compounding Pharmacy Fraud, Drug and DME Pricing, FCA Federal, Other Government Health Programs, Pharma Fraud, Whistleblower Case, Whistleblower Rewards,

November 5, 2019

A home health agency that allegedly defrauded Medicare and Louisiana’s Medicaid program has agreed to pay $2.5 million to settle claims arising from a qui tam suit.  Defendants Health Care Options, Inc., Health Care Options of Lafayette, Inc., Home Care Options Houston, Inc., and Howard Austin, II allegedly submitted reimbursement claims involving non-face-to-face encounters, as required by program rules.  USAO MDLA

Tagged in: FCA Federal, Healthcare Fraud, Home Health and Hospice, Medicaid, Medicare, Whistleblower Case,

October 31, 2019

In the largest healthcare fraud case ever to come out of Mississippi, pharmacy owner Thomas Spell has been sentenced to 10 years in prison and ordered to pay over $243 million in restitution for knowingly defrauding TRICARE.  Between 2014 and 2016, Spell and his co-conspirators had deviously marketed compounded medications based on their rate of reimbursement from TRICARE, paid illegal kickbacks to marketers in order to obtain prescriptions from TRICARE beneficiaries, and improperly waived mandatory copayments for TRICARE beneficiaries.  USAO SDMS

Tagged in: Anti-Kickback and Stark, Compounding Pharmacy Fraud, Healthcare Fraud, Other Government Health Programs, Pharma Fraud,

October 29, 2019

Encompass Health Corporation (EHC), f/k/a HealthSouth Corporation, has agreed to pay $4 million to resolve of improperly billing Medicare.  According to the DOJ, between 2008 and 2012, an inpatient rehabilitation facility owned by EHC had improperly assigned low Functional Independence Measure scores on Patient Assessment Instrument forms in a bid to receive higher reimbursements from Medicare.  USAO NV

Tagged in: FCA Federal, Healthcare Fraud, Medical Billing Fraud, Medicare, Provider Fraud, Upcoding,

October 29, 2019

A former resident of Atlanta has been sentenced to 1.5 years in prison and ordered to pay $306,179 in restitution for defrauding PERACare, the Colorado Public Employees Retirement Association’s health insurance plan.  For more than two years, Michael Bang allegedly submitted fraudulent reimbursement claims involving three Atlanta-area pharmacies to Express Scripts, which administers PERACare’s prescription benefits. Altogether, his scheme netted him over $300,000.  USAO NDGA

Tagged in: Healthcare Fraud, Medical Billing Fraud, Other Government Health Programs, Pharma Fraud,

October 28, 2019

The State of Illinois has reached a settlement with more than a dozen drug manufacturers alleged to have published inflated "average wholesale prices" for drugs whose purchase was reimbursed by Illinois's Medicaid program at prices based on those false AWPs.  The settlement for $242 million includes Abbott Laboratories, Inc.; Aventis Pharmaceuticals Inc.; Aventis Behring LLC, n/k/a ZLB Behring; B. Braun Medical Inc.; Forest Laboratories, Inc.; GlaxoSmithKline LLC; Johnson & Johnson, Inc.; Janssen Pharmaceutical Products, LP; McNeil-PPC, Inc.; Ortho Biotech Products, LP; Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical, Inc.; Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation; Pfizer Inc.; Pharmacia Corporation; and TAP Pharmaceutical Products, Inc.  In total, Illinois has settled inflated AWP claims against more than four dozen manufacturers (see, e.g., January 2019 settlement with TEVA Pharmaceuticals), recovering $678 million in total.  IL AG  

Tagged in: Drug and DME Pricing, FCA State, Medicaid, Pharma Fraud,

October 28, 2019

Atheir Amarrah, the owner of Michigan-based Prompt Care Home Health Services Inc, has been sentenced to 5 years in prison and ordered to pay $1 million in restitution after pleading guilty to paying recruiters for referrals to Medicare beneficiaries.  In his guilty plea, Amarrah also admitted to billing Medicare for claims tainted by illegal kickbacks.  DOJ

Tagged in: Anti-Kickback and Stark, Criminal Proceedings, Healthcare Fraud, Home Health and Hospice, Medicare,

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