ALBANY, NEW YORK – Steven A. St. Lucia has agreed to pay $42,000 to the United States to resolve allegations that he caused Union Foot Solutions, LLC, d/b/a Union Orthotics and Pedorthics (Union Foot Solutions), to submit false claims for payment to Medicare in violation of the False Claims Act, announced United States Attorney Carla B. Freedman. St. Lucia has pled guilty to state health care fraud charges and is scheduled for sentencing on March 17, 2023.
As part of the Settlement Agreement, St. Lucia admitted to the following:
In early 2000, the New York State Board of Professional Medical Conduct revoked St. Lucia’s medical license based on findings that he had committed conduct demonstrating moral unfitness and gross incompetence. Later that year, the Office of Inspector General for the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS-OIG) excluded St. Lucia from participating in all Federal health care programs, including Medicare. The effect of an exclusion is that no Federal health care program may make payment for items or services furnished by an excluded person, or at the medical direction or on the prescription of an excluded person.
St. Lucia subsequently opened Schenectady-based Union Foot Solutions, a medical supply company, and applied to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for Union Foot Solutions to participate in Medicare. That enrollment application falsely represented both that St. Lucia had never had a revocation or...
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