The former owner of an Alabama nursing home and two of the facility’s occupational therapy assistants settled a federal lawsuit for nearly $1.4 million that alleged they submitted false claims to Medicare, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.

Diversicare Healthcare Services, LLC, which owns 43 health care facilities throughout five states and owned the Canterbury Health Care Facility in Phenix City before March 3, and therapy assistants Kellie S. Lemons and Charles M. James agreed to pay the federal government $1.38 million to resolve allegations they violated the False Claims Act, announced Sandra Stewart, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle of Alabama.

A whistleblower -- a former Diversicare employee -- filed a complaint alleging Lemons and James falsified occupational therapy records when they clocked into the Canterbury nursing home, left the facility and moonlighted for other home health care companies in the area, prosecutors said.

The workers then billed Medicare for services at Diversicare that they did not perform, according to the whistleblower.

The former Diversicare employee also alleged the company allowed and condoned the employee’s actions and “knowingly submitted false claims to Medicare for reimbursement for these services,” prosecutors said.

The whistleblower is set to receive more than $200,000 as his share of the settlement money for bringing forward the complaint.

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