HealthSouth Corporation, the nation’s largest provider of rehabilitative medicine services, has agreed to pay the United States $325 million to settle allegations that the company defrauded Medicare and other federal healthcare programs, the Department of Justice said Thursday.
“When a company defrauds our nation’s health care programs, it steals from the American taxpayers,” Assistant Attorney General Peter Keisler, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division, said. “HealthSouth’s fraud on Medicare was driven both by longstanding business practices in its outpatient physical therapy business and improprieties in its inpatient rehabilitation business.”
The allegations involving the outpatient therapy services were the subject of a federal lawsuit in San Antonio, Texas.
Some of the civil issues resolved as part of today’s settlement resolve allegations in lawsuits filed by whistleblowers, under the False Claims Act. This law allows a relator who qualifies under the statute to receive a share of the settlement proceeds recovered in that lawsuit.
The whistleblowers including James Devage will receive $8,139,498, DeWayne Manning will receive $4,069,749, and Brupbacher Associates and Micahel Freeman will share $150,000.
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The worst part of this story is what is not stated-the people that Medicare and other federal healthcare programs exist to serve remain unserved to the tune of the amount that is fraudulently billed and collected by such companies.
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