Three New York City Home Health Agencies Pay $9.7 Million to the United States to Settle False Claims Act Claims
- February 02, 2010 by Qui Tam
- Federal False Claims Act, Healthcare, State False Claims Acts
The United States and the State of New York have entered into settlement agreements with three home health agencies to resolve allegations that the agencies submitted false claims to the New York Medicaid and Medicare Programs.
The New York Medicaid Program provides coverage for home health aides only if those aides have valid certificates showing that they received proper training. The United States claimed that one of the agencies knowingly supplied aides with phony training certificates and then billed New York Medicaid for the aides’ services. The United States also claimed that an agency knowingly billed for aides with phony certificates who were untrained and knowingly submitted claims to the Medicare Program for home health aide services purportedly supplied that were not actually provided.
As part of this settlement, the United States is receiving approximately $9.7 million and the State of New York is receiving approximately $14.3 million, for a total recovery of $24 million.
The settlements resolve allegations in two lawsuits filed under the whistleblower provisions of the False Claims Act. One whistleblower will receive $251,107 from the government’s recovery, while a second will receive $1,663.040 from the settlement.
More information can be found at: http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2009/December/09-civ-1362.html