Category: Healthcare
Masoncare Health Center, an inpatient and outpatient healthcare facility, was charged with violating the False Claims Act and will pay the government almost $450,000 to resolve the allegations. Masoncare was improperly billing Medicare and Medicaid for injections of leuprolide acetate, or Lupron. The medication is used to treat prostate cancer in men and endometriosis and fibroids in women.
Sutter Hospital, a large hospital chain in Northern California, has had a qui tam lawsuit filed against them for false billing of anesthesia services. It is believed that the fraudulent amount is in the hundreds of million of dollars. Some of the billing codes for the services or supplies that Sutter Hospitals used were previously paid.
The Justice Department has intervened in a qui tam lawsuit originally filed in September of 2009 against ambulance company Rural/Metro Corp., alleging the company fraudulently billed Medicare and Medicaid for services provided to dialysis patients which were either not necessary or not rendered. The suit, brought by a former employee of Rural/Metro subsidiary Rural/Metro of Central Alabama,
In a qui tam lawsuit brought by three former employees, Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) is accused of fostering a culture that encouraged kickbacks. In a document titled “Bristol-Myers Squibb Cultural Expectations” published for the companies’ sales reps, employees are encouraged to commit company funds and personnel to regions that can produce gains.
In 2005, Guidant (now a division of Boston Scientific) admitted to knowing for three years that their Ventak Prizm heart defibrilator could short circuit, leading to both unnecessary shocks to the heart as well failures to shock when necessary, but the medical device giant did nothing to alert physicians or the public.
In January 2011, the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan filed a lawsuit against the City of New York, accusing the city’s Human Resources Administration of overbilling Medicaid millions of dollars by abusing the federally funded 24-hour home care program. The suit followed a complaint filed by a whistleblower. The suit alleges that,
On June 8, 2010, President Obama announced the onset of regional fraud prevention summits; a nationally comprehensive effort to fight health care fraud. Since inception, five summits have been held across the nation in the cities of Miami, FL, Los Angeles, CA, Brooklyn, NY, Boston, MA, and most recently, Detroit,
Former Medline Industries, Inc. employee turned whistleblower, Sean Mason, will receive $23.4 million of the $85 million Medline will pay to settle Mason’s lawsuit alleging false claims act violations. Mason’s complaint accuses Medline, an Illinois medical products company, of inducing medical providers such as HCA, Inc. and HealthSouth Corp., with fraudulent kickbacks in the form of “rebates”,
A Bill currently pending before the Washington State Senate would enact a Medicaid False Claims Act to protect against false claims made to the Washington State Medicaid Program. Senate Bill Number 5458 would, like the federal False Claims Act, encourage private whistleblowers (known as qui tam “relators”) to step forward and file a lawsuit against those who submit false claims for payment to the Washington State Medicaid Program.
The office manager of a wheelchair manufacturer pleaded guilty to conspiring with a church pastor that defrauded Medicare of over $6 million. The defendant admitted to submitting false claims for high-end power wheelchair and other medical equipment provided to Medicare beneficiaries that did not need them. The defendant also admitted to destroying documents in an attempt to cover up the fraud.
