Medicaid

June 23, 2015

Georgia announced a prison sentence for the owner of Senior Care of Columbus, Inc., following her guilty plea to Medicaid fraud and related charges. From 2009 until 2011, the defendant submitted numerous fraudulent claims for and was reimbursed for services that were not provided to patients. An extraordinarily high percentage of claims submitted by defendant for reimbursement to Georgia Medicaid lacked any documentation, and it was discovered that in many instances, the defendant billed Medicaid on days when patients received no services at all, and for patients who had been discharged. GA

June 18, 2015

Florida joined the federal government in announcing charges against 73 South Florida residents for their alleged participation in various schemes to defraud Medicare and Medicaid out of more than $262 million. FL

June 18, 2015

Connecticut commenced a case under that state’s False Claims Act against the co-owners of a psychiatric clinic alleged to have submitted false claims to the state’s Medicaid program, Connecticut Medical Assistance Program (CMAP), from January 2010 through December 2014. According to the complaint, the defendants illegally submitted false claims for reimbursement while knowingly retaining and concealing the overpayment. The psychiatrist is alleged to have engaged in a systemic practice of knowingly “upcoding” the claims for reimbursement she submitted to the CMAP. For example, as the complaint alleges, she routinely double, triple, and in some cases quadruple-booked appointments for her Medicaid patients, then submitted CMAP using a reimbursement code, which required her to see the patient for approximately 75 to 80 minutes when, in fact, she saw each patient for as little as 5-10 minutes. The state’s complaint identifies 113 days where the psychaitrist billed the CMAP for more than 24 hours of service. Both defendants are also alleged to have attempted to conceal from state auditors the existence of databases that contained information which would have established evidence that the claims were false. CT

June 11, 2015

Louisiana announced that its Medicaid program will receive over $5 million as a result of a settlement between specialty pharmacy company Accredo Health Group, Inc. and 40 states and the federal government, resolving allegations that Accredo engaged in a scheme with drugmaker Novartis to boost sales of the drug Exjade, which is used to treat chronic iron overload due to blood transfusions. Accredo is accused of improperly directing nurses to contact Medicaid beneficiaries to encourage continued use of Exjade. Accredo’s goal in the scheme was to earn higher sales revenue, additional dispensing fees and more rebates from Novartis. The nurses were directed to discuss Exjade’s common side effects, but not its less common but more severe possible side effects such as kidney or liver problems. LA

May 6, 2015

New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman announced that Carewell Ambulette, Inc. and its owner, Kurien Palliankal have pleaded guilty to stealing more than $200,000 from the New York Medicaid program. Palliankal will be sentenced to six months in jail, followed by five years of probation, and will also be required to pay full restitution to Medicaid. Carewell will be fined $10,000. From July 2006 through March 2010, Palliankal and Carewell defrauded the Medicaid system by doctoring the request forms received from the medical providers. These forms authorized taxi service, but Palliankal changed the forms to appear as though they authorized the more expensive ambulette service, which Medicaid pays at a rate four times higher than taxi service. NY

April 28, 2015

Life Focus Center of Charlestown, Inc., a former nonprofit that provided day habilitation services to individuals with developmental disabilities, agreed to pay more than $94,000 to settle claims it violated the Massachusetts False Claims Act by billing the state’s Medicaid program (MassHealth) for services not provided. MA

April 23, 2015

Grady Health System agreed to pay $2,950,000 to settle claims it inaccurately coded claims for neo-natal intensive care unit patients, resulting in alleged damages to the Georgia Medicaid program. GA

April 16, 2015

Georgia doctor Zheng Xiang Wang and the Wang Eye Clinic, P.C. agreed to pay $790,000 to settle allegations they billed Georgia Medicaid for medically unnecessary ophthalmology procedures. GA

April 13, 2015

Hallmark Health Systems agreed to pay $1.75 million to settle allegations it improperly billed the Massachusetts Medicaid Program (MassHealth) for certain inpatient admissions at its hospitals, resulting in overpayments by MassHealth. The settlement alleges that from March 2008 to December 2013, Hallmark used a specific default code that classified MassHealth patients as having received short-stay inpatient services, when an observation or outpatient level of care would have been more appropriate. MA

April 7, 2015

Dr. Punyamurtula Kishore along with his company Preventive Medicine Associates, Inc. pleaded guilty for running a Medicaid fraud scheme involving millions of dollars in taxpayer funds. Kishore was sentenced to 360 days in jail and ordered to pay $9.3 million in restitution. Based on the government’s investigation, Dr. Kishore used bribes, or kickbacks, to induce sober house owners to send their residents’ urine drug screening business to his laboratories for testing. MA