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Medicaid

This archive displays posts tagged as relevant to Medicaid and fraud in the Medicaid program. You may also be interested in our pages:

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January 11, 2019

 Teva Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. will pay $135 million to the state of Illinois to settle allegations that published fraudulently inflated Average Wholesale Prices (AWPs) for numerous prescription drugs.  Illinois's Medicaid program bases its drug reimbursements for Medicaid beneficiaries on AWPs, and the inflated AWPs caused Illinois to overpay. IL AG

December 18, 2018

Following an earlier settlement of federal claims, Florida has announced that hospital chain Health Management Associates, LLC, will pay $5.5 million to Florida to resolve claims that two HMA hospitals, Charlotte Regional Medical Center and Peace River Medical Center, billed the Florida Medicaid program for services referred by physicians to whom HMA provided remuneration in return for patient referrals.  The unlawful remuneration took the form of free rent, office space, and staff services, as well as direct payments purportedly meant to cover overhead and administrative costs.  FL AG

December 14, 2018

Crossroads Hospice of Kansas has agreed to pay $300,000 for violating the Kansas False Claims Act. Under that law, once a healthcare provider is alerted to charges improperly submitted to the state's Medicaid program, it is obligated to refund the reimbursement in a timely manner or risk prosecution. In the case of Crossroads, the provider had failed to refund money paid on behalf of improperly certified beneficiaries. KS AG

December 13, 2018

Relationship Toward Self-Discovery (RTS), the operator of a residential care facility for developmentally disabled adults, has been ordered to pay $2.79 million in the first ever Medicaid False Claims Act trial in the State of Washington. Initially filed by a former bookkeeper turned whistleblower, the lawsuit alleged that from 2012 to 2015, RTS billed Medicare for 60,328 "sleep hours" spent by overnight employees at its facility. Per state law, a "sleep rate" is required to be paid to overnight employees for every hour spent on call on site; if the employees are called to work, a regular rate is paid instead. Although Medicare reimbursed the company for $928,221, RTS allegedly paid its employees only a fraction of the amount owed to them, and in a single year, the difference between the amount RTS reported to Medicare that it paid and the actual amount it paid totaled as much as $200,000. WA AG

December 11, 2018

Target Corp. will pay $3 million to settle allegations that it improperly billed and received payments from the state’s Medicaid program (MassHealth). Between August 2009 and July 2015, at their Massachusetts locations, Target allowed auto-refills on prescriptions that were not clearly requested by a MassHealth patient or caregiver at the time of refill. The investigation arose from a qui tam action by an unnamed whistleblower in the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota. Mass AG  

December 11, 2018

Coordinated Health Holding Company, LLC, a for-profit hospital and health system, and its founder, owner, and CEO, Emil DiIorio, M.D., have agreed to pay a combined $12.5 million to settle allegations of violating the False Claims Act in claims submitted to Medicare, Medicaid, and federal employee health insurers. From 2007 until 2014, under DiIorio's direction, Coordinated Health allegedly exploited a billing code called Modifier 59 in order to separately bill for orthopedic surgery charges that, properly billed, instead fall under a single "global" payment for each surgery. Even after outside consultants warned company executives about the improper practice in 2011 and 2013 and provided on-site training on the proper use of Modifier 59, Coordinated Health continued making false claims, causing federal healthcare payers to overpay by millions of dollars. As part of the settlement, the company has signed a Corporate Integrity Agreement for additional government oversight into its billing practices over the next five years. USAO EDPA

December 11, 2018

Aurora Health Care, Inc. has agreed to pay $12 million to settle allegations of defrauding Medicare and Wisconsin's Medicaid program in certain reimbursement claims filed between 2008 to 2012. According to the United States and State of Wisconsin, the healthcare provider and two physicians entered into improper financial relationships in violation of the federal and state False Claims Acts as well as the Stark Law. As a result, some of the claims that Aurora submitted to the government health programs were improper. Despite alerting the government to the illegal arrangement, a qui tam complaint filed by unnamed whistleblowers alleged different claims. Although the whistleblowers will still receive a share of the recovery, the government did not intervene in their lawsuit, which will be dismissed as part of the settlement. USAO EDWI

December 4, 2018

Dermatology Associates of Central New York, PLLC has agreed to pay $811,196.88 to settle claims that it overcharged Medicaid, Medicare, and TRICARE by falsely submitting claims under physicians' names, in violation of both the federal and New York False Claims Acts. A whistleblower complaint revealed that many of the physicians named on invoices were not in the office the day care was provided and could not have supervised in the rendering of services, and that some of the non-physician practitioners who provided care were not licensed to do so in the state of New York. As a result of bringing the fraud to light, the unnamed whistleblower will receive $138,000. USAO NDNY

November 27, 2018

Twelve individuals have been charged by a federal grand jury in a 22-count indictment related to a multi-year conspiracy to defraud the Pennsylvania Medicaid Home Care Program. The indictment lists a multitude of fraudulent acts by the defendants, alleging that they: submitted false claims for services that were not provided, misused consumers’ personal identifying information, provided false documentation during state audits, and even submitted claims to Medicaid for home care services for consumers who were hospitalized or no longer alive. Ten of the defendants reside in Western Pennsylvania, one is a resident of Georgia, and the twelfth defendant is a resident of South Carolina. Between January 2011 and April 2017, the conspirators, who owned and operated the home health care companies, received more than $87,000,000 in Medicaid payments.  The conspiracy and health care fraud charges each carry a maximum total sentence of 10 years in prison, a fine of $250,000, or both.  DOJ

November 8, 2018

Renee Christine Borunda of Greensboro, North Carolina, was sentenced to prison and ordered to make restitution to the North Carolina Medicaid program for conduct that defrauded Medicaid.  Borunda, who worked for a behavioral health services provider, used a therapist's personal information to submit false bills for behavioral services, claiming that services were provided to over 200 different Medicaid recipients when no such services were rendered.  USAO EDNC; NC
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