Earlier this year, the United States Department of Justice filed a notice of partial intervention into a whistleblower suit against Modernizing Medicine (ModMed), an electronic health records (EHR) vendor. The original lawsuit, filed in 2017, alleges that ModMed violated the False Claims Act several ways, including misuse of federal EHR incentive programs that resulted in illegal kickbacks for physicians.
Allegations
According to the lawsuit, ModMed develops and sells EHR software to healthcare providers throughout the country. ModMed allegedly falsely represented to its certifying bodies and the United States that its software complied with requirements for certification and for the payment of incentives under the Meaningful use program.
Specifically, ModMed allegedly (a) falsely attested to its certifying body that its software met the certification criteria; (b) obtained certification of its software without ensuring that the software released to customers met certification criteria; (c) caused its users to falsely attest to using a certified EHR technology when its own software could not support the applicable certification criteria in the field; and (d) caused its users to report inaccurate information regarding Meaningful Use objectives and measures in attestations to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
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