CHICAGO (CBS) -- A lawsuit has issued serious claims of fraud against Roseland Community Hospital in the city's Far South Side – centered around COVID-19 testing.
As CBS 2's Jermont Terry reported Friday night, a whistleblower accuses the hospital of running up insurance bills, and raking in millions.
For more than a year, federal investigators kept documents in this case sealed – until Friday. A fired doctor whose sole job was to oversee COVID testing, along with a Roseland hospital executive, are accused of deliberately defrauding taxpayers and insurance companies for profit.
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, health facilities scrambled to meet the demand for testing. On the Far South Side at the time, we saw people standing in long lines at Roseland Community Hospital.
Now, two years later, the whistleblower claims the hospital "billed for services related to COVID-19 testing that were never provided."
The newly-unsealed complaint was filed by Elio Montenegro, who is an "employee of Roseland where he works as the Senior Director of Development." The whistleblower worked directly with hospital leaders back then, and still does today.
The 25-paghe complaint accuses a now-fired employee - "Dr. Terrill Applewhite, an independent contractor, who worked as Medical Director overseeing the hospital's COVID-19 response."
The suit says Applewhite and his company, along with the hospital, "knowingly and intentionally submitted false claims for payment."
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