INDIANAPOLIS — The U.S. Department of Justice has reached a $1.7 million settlement with a former Indiana physician to resolve allegations that he submitted thousands of fraudulent claims to the Indiana Medicaid program, federal officials announced.
The agreement involves Don Wagoner of Burlington, who previously operated Wagoner Medical Center LLC. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Indiana, Wagoner filed more than 5,000 false Medicaid claims, resulting in nearly $1 million in improper payments. Court records show the fraud centered on urine drug testing performed on patients seeking opioid or pain medication prescriptions. Patients consented to provide urine samples for drug screening, which Wagoner tested using a single multiplex screening kit.
Despite conducting only one test per patient, Wagoner billed Indiana Medicaid for testing that purportedly screened patients nine or more times for as many drugs.
Those claims generated reimbursements of about $171 per patient, far exceeding Medicaid’s allowable rate of $20.83 per test. Prosecutors said the scheme was concealed by falsely certifying that multiple samples had been separately collected and analyzed when only one sample was tested.
In December 2017, the United States and the State of Indiana filed a civil complaint under the False Claims Act seeking repayment and additional penalties. Several years earlier, Wagoner had surrendered his medical and prescribing licenses....
News Release INDIANAPOLIS — The U.S. Department of Justice has reached a $1.7 million settlement with a former Indiana physician to resolve allegations that he submitted thousands of fraudulent cl...