Two therapists in Vero Beach and Melbourne who claim they were fired after blowing the whistle on their former healthcare employer will pocket a portion of a multi-million-dollar settlement announced last week by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Oklahoma City-based Carter Healthcare and two of its top officers paid more than $7 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the two whistleblowers who claimed that affiliates of the home-health provider defrauded Medicare by pushing therapy services for Florida seniors without regard to medical need, according to attorneys representing the therapists.
Carter Healthcare, a family-owned home-health and hospice-care network with offices around Florida, including Melbourne, Vero Beach, Port St. Lucie, denied wrongdoing but agreed to sanctions and payments, federal officials stated in a release issued Oct. 18.
The company and its affiliates also operate in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Missouri, and Kansas.
Between 2014 and 2016, Carter Healthcare, “allegedly billed the Medicare Program knowingly and improperly for home healthcare to patients in Florida based on therapy provided without regard to medical necessity and overbilled for therapy by upcoding patients’ diagnoses.”
“Medicare fraud costs our taxpayers billions annually,” Juan Antonio Gonzalez, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida said in a statement. “We take this fraudulent activity very seriously and will continue to prosecute it to the fullest extent of the law.”
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