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Home Health & Hospice Week

Fraud & Abuse:

Hospice Settles Fraud Charges For $6 Million

Published on Thu Jun 28, 2012

Whistleblower lawsuit leads to $1.3 million reward for relator.Do you base any of your clinical staff's pay on admissions and patient census? If so, you may want to change that practice.That's one of the problems listed by the Department of Justice in a case against Hospice Care of Kansas, owned by Ft. Worth, Texas-based Voyager HospiceCare Inc. Hospice Care has agreed to settle fraud allegations for $6.1 million, the DOJ says in a release.From 2004 to 2008, Hospice Care submitted claims for beneficiaries that didn't have a six-month prognosis, prosecutors say. In addition to the improper pay structure for staff, Hospice Care delayed discharges of patients determined not to have a six month or less prognosis, instructed staff to document patient conditions in a misleading manner, and implemented an inadequate compliance program, according to the release.The case originated with a qui tam lawsuit from whistleblower Beverly Landis, a Hospice Care [...]
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