Hospice Company Pays $6.1 Million for Submitting False Claims

The United States government will collect $6.1 million from Hospice Care of Kansas LLC and its parent company, Ft. Worth, Texas-based Voyager HospiceCare Inc. as a result to resolve False Claims Act allegations. Former Hospice Care of Kansas nurse, Beverly Landis, under the qui tam, or whistleblower, provisions of the False Claims Act revealed that the hospice company was submitting false claims over a course of four years to Medicare for beneficiaries that did not have a terminal prognosis of six months or less. Later, the government found out that there were various practices that the company was involved in resulting in the submission of false claims such as implementation of an inadequate compliance program, delaying discharges of patients determined not to have a six month or less prognosis and instructions to staff to document patient conditions in a misleading manner. Ms. Landis will receive payments totaling $1.342 million from the $6.1 million.

For more information, please see:

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2012/June/12-civ-768.html