Category: Healthcare
The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York has announced that Lenox Hill Hospital will pay $11.75 million dollars to settle a civil health care fraud lawsuit.
The federal government accused Lenox Hospital of fraudulently inflating its charges for services provided to Medicare patients in order to obtain higher supplemental reimbursements that Medicare pays to health care providers in cases where the cost of care is unusually high.
On May 3, 2012, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Tennessee announced that a number of dialysis centers in the Knoxville, Tennessee area had agreed to pay $4.36 million to resolve allegations that they had violated the federal False Claims Act, the Tennessee Medicaid False Claims Act and other federal and state laws and regulations.
On May 7, 2012, the Justice Department announced that Abbott Laboratories, Inc. has pled guilty to allegations arising out of its promotion of the prescription drug, Depakote.
Abbott Labs was charged with promoting the drug for uses which had not been approved as safe and effective by the Food and Drug Administration.
On April 24, 2012, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a final rule requiring stronger protections against fraudsters. The final rule allows only qualified, identifiable providers and suppliers to order or certify medical services, equipment, and supplies for Medicare beneficiaries.
CMS will be diligently verifying provider credentials.
On April 20, 2012, the Department of Justice announced that Walgreens, a national retail pharmacy chain has paid the United States and affiliated states a $7.9 million settlement to resolve allegations that the pharmacy violated the False Claims Act. Walgreens, allegedly offered illegal incentives to beneficiaries of government health care programs which include Medicare,
On Thursday, April 26, 2012, Stuart F. Delery, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Civil Division; New Jersey U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman; and Daniel R. Levinson, Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced that the McKesson Corporation has agreed to pay the United States a $190 million settlement to resolve allegations that the company violated the False Claims Act.
A spokesperson of Merck Sharp & Dohme announced that the company agreed to plead guilty to one count of misbranding Vioxx. The unit of Merck & Co., the second-largest U.S. drug maker, plead guilty to a criminal misdemeanor charge as part of a $950 million settlement of a U.S. government probe of its illegal marketing of the painkiller Vioxx.
After an Arkansas jury found that Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) company officials misled doctors and patients about the risks of one of their drugs, a judge ruled that JNJ must pay more than $1.1 billion in fines. The drug was an antipsychotic medication called Risperdal. The jury had concluded that J&J’s marketing of this particular drug violated both Medicare fraud laws and Arkansas’s deceptive trade practices statutes.
The Justice Department announced on April 3, 2012 that Radiotherapy Clinics of Georgia LLC, a radiation oncology practice, and its affiliates RCOG Cancer Centers LLC, Physician Oncology Services Management Company LLC, Frank A. Critz, M.D. and Physician Oncology Services L.P. (jointly, RCOG) agreed to pay $3.8 million to settle claims that they violated the False Claims Act.
WellCare Health Plans Inc., based in Tampa, will pay $137.5 million to settle allegations of False Claims Act violations. WellCare provides managed health care services for Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries throughout the country. The suit alleged various schemes which included submitting false claims to government health care programs, and included allegations that WellCare wrongly overstated the amount it claimed to be spending on medical care so that they did not have to return money to these government health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid.
