On December 2, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that Flower Mound Hospital Partners LLC will pay $18.2 million to resolve allegations that it violated the False Claims Act. The whistleblower responsible for bringing the qui tam case against Flower Mound Hospital will receive $3 million for his involvement.
Flower Mound Hospital is a “partially physician-owned hospital in Flower Mound, Texas.” This settlement resolves allegations that it “knowingly submitted claims to the Medicare, Medicaid, and TRICARE programs that resulted from violations of the Physician Self-Referral Law and the Anti-Kickback Statute,” the press release states.
The Physician Self-Referral Law, or the Stark Law, outlaws hospitals “from billing for certain services referred by physicians with whom the hospital[s] has a financial relationship, unless that relationship satisfies one of the law’s statutory or regulatory exceptions.” Similarly, the Anti-Kickback Statute “prohibits offering or paying remuneration to induce the referral of items or services” covered by federal medical programs and “other federally funded programs.”
The U.S. alleged that Flower Mound Hospital violated both the Stark Law and the Anti-Kickback Statute “when it repurchased shares from physician-owners aged 63 or older and then resold those shares to younger physicians.” Allegedly, Flower Mound Hospital “impermissibly took into account the volume or value of certain physicians’ referrals when it (1) selected the physicians...
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