The co-owners of a Lehigh Valley podiatry practice agreed to pay a $181,000 fine to settle an allegation of false billing for a medical device, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
Podiatrists Adam Teichman and Thomas Rocchio of PA Foot & Ankle Associates, which has offices in Allentown, Easton, Northampton and Lansford, Carbon County, submitted more than 7,000 claims for payment to Medicare involving the use of Sanexas, an electrical stimulation device, between Sept. 2019 and March 2021, the office said in a news release. The treatment, which the practice mainly uses to treat a nerve disorder in diabetic patients, was often billed with accompanying vitamin injections.
The U.S. Attorney contended the treatments aren’t covered under Medicare or Medicaid because Sanexas treatment was not cleared by the Food and Drug Administration for use in combination with vitamin injections. Additionally, the vitamin blend was not FDA approved and was produced in bulk, rather than prescribed for individual patients.
In billing the treatments, Teichman and Rocchio relied on the advice from a third-party billing company. They cooperated with the attorney’s office to resolve the allegations. There has been no determination of civil liability, the office said.
“Providers cannot blindly rely on a marketer’s advice or a medical billing service, especially when a health care billing scheme sounds too good to be true,” said U.S. Attorney Jennifer Arbittier Williams of the Eastern District of...
University of Rochester Medical Center and a former pathologist resolved a retaliation suit alleging URMC violated the False Claims Act by firing her for calling attention to federal grant fraud. ...