HPH Hospice Settles Healthcare Fraud Claims for $1M; Whistleblowers to Get $250K
Florida-based HPH Hospice agreed to pay $1 million to resolve allegations that the company knowingly submitted or caused the submission of false claims to Medicare and Medicaid, the U.S. Department of Justice announced last month.
The Medicare hospice benefit is available for patients who have a life expectancy of six months or less if their disease runs its normal course. Patients admitted to a hospice stop receiving care to treat their illnesses and instead receive medical care focused on providing them with relief from the symptoms, pain, and stress of a terminal illness. Medicare reimburses for different levels of hospice care.
HPH Hospice allegedly submitted false Medicare and Medicaid claims for patients who did not need end of life care. The government alleged that HPH Hospice caused staff to admit ineligible patients in order to meet targets imposed by management, adopted procedures to delay and discourage staff from discharging patients who were not appropriate for hospice services, instructed staff to make false or misleading statements in patients’ medical records to make them appear eligible when they were not, and failed to implement an adequate compliance program that might have corrected these problems.
The settlement also resolved allegations that HPH Hospice billed the government at higher reimbursement rates than it was entitled to receive and provided illegal kickbacks in the form of free services to skilled nursing facilities in exchange for patient referrals.
HPH Hospice has also agreed to enter into a Corporate Integrity Agreement with the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services that provides for procedures and reviews to be put in place to avoid and detect conduct similar to that which gave rise to the settlement.
The lawsuit was originally filed by Heather Numbers and Greg Davis, former HPH Hospice employees, under the whistleblower provisions of the False Claims Act. The False Claims Act allows private citizens with knowledge of fraud against the government to sue on behalf of the government and share in the recovery. Numbers and Davis will collectively receive $250,000 as their share of the settlement.
The Chanler Group, in association with the Hirst Law Group, represents whistleblowers who take action under the False Claims Act to report fraud committed against the federal and state governments. We have years of experience representing whistleblower clients who expose every kind of fraud against the government, including health care fraud, contract fraud, and tax fraud. Read more about our expertise in False Claims Act cases and how you can take action.