Medical Billing Fraud

October 16, 2017

Louisiana announced the arrests of three New Orleans women as a result of an investigation exposing over $2 million in Medicaid Fraud. Lanice Stamps, 44 of New Orleans and owner of A New Direction Support Services, was arrested on 10 counts of Medicaid fraud for allegedly providing false and fraudulent claims for behavioral health services not rendered. Many recipients were fraudulently diagnosed as moderately mentally retarded or severely autistic so that the claims submitted could be billed at a higher level and they had never received counseling services. LA

July 13, 2017

New York podiatrist Perrin D. Edwards pled guilty to health care fraud for illegally charging Medicare and private insurance companies for podiatry services he never provided and agreed to pay $410,000 to resolve charges of violating the False Claims Act.  DOJ (NDNY)

July 6, 2017

Matthew Kolodesh, Alex Pugman, Svetlana Ganetsky, and Malvina Yakobashvili agreed to pay millions of dollars to settle False Claims Act allegations that they and their now-defunct company Home Care Hospice, Inc. falsely billed for hospice services that were either unnecessary or never provided.  The allegations originated in a whistleblower lawsuit under the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act by former HCH employees Maureen Fox and Cathy Gonzales.  They will receive a yet-to-be-determined whistleblower award from the proceeds of the government's recovery.  DOJ (EDPA)

June 30, 2017

Dawn Bentley, a Detroit-area medical biller, was sentenced to 50 months in prison and to pay roughly $3.3 million for her role in a $7.3 million Medicare and Medicaid fraud scheme involving medical services that were billed to Medicare and Medicaid but not rendered as billed.  DOJ

August 4, 2017

Georgia announced a civil settlement with The Medical Center of Central Georgia, Inc., more commonly known as The Medical Center, Navicent Health (Navicent). Navicent agreed to pay to the United States and the State of Georgia $2,549,742 to resolve allegations that it violated the False Claims Act and the Georgia False Medicaid Claims Act by submitting bills for ambulance transports that were either inflated or medically unnecessary. Additionally, Navicent’s current Corporate Integrity Agreement (CIA) will be heightened and extended to cover the newly resolved conduct. A CIA is an agreement between a private provider of services and the United States whereby the provider, at its own expense, institutes and maintains a program, overseen by the OIG with reviews by an independent review organization, to insure compliance with the laws and regulations regarding participation in federally funded programs. GA

June 22, 2017

Dr. James M. Crumb, a physical medicine and rehabilitative specialist currently practicing in Alabama as Mobility Metabolism and Wellness, P.C.,and Coastal Neurological Institute, P.C., a local neurosurgeon physician group, agreed collectively to pay $1.4 million to resolve allegations they violated the False Claims Act by billing federal health care programs for medically unreasonable and unnecessary ultrasound guidance used with routine lab blood draws, and with Botox and trigger point injections. As a result of this billing scheme, the defendants sometimes billed 15 to 30 identical ultrasound guidance claims for a single patient office visit. DOJ (SDAL)

June 15, 2017

Kentucky allergists Bruce Wolf and Kiro John Yun agreed to pay $740,578 to resolve allegations their medical practice group of otolaryngologists Wolf and Yun, P.S.C., specializing in allergy, asthma and immunology, violated the False Claims Act by billing the government for Sublingual Immunotherapy serum preparation and overstated units of serum preparation for injection vials. Sublingual immunotherapy is an alternative way to treat allergies without injections whereby an allergist prescribes a patient with an allergen that is sprayed under the tongue to boost tolerance to substances and reduce symptoms but it is not covered by Medicare because it is considered investigational. DOJ (WDKY)