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

Tagged in: FCA State, Medicaid, Whistleblower Case,