Home Health & Hospice Week

Compensation, marketing practices cost VITAS.

You'd better take a hard look at the financial incentives you furnish to your staff, clinical documentation for longer-stay patients, and your length of stay stats compared to your peers, if you hope to avoid the fate of the nation's largest for-profit hospice chain.

VITAS Healthcare Services, VITAS Healthcare Corp., and VITAS parent Chemed Corp. have agreed to pay $75 million to settle charges VITAS submitted false claims from 2002 to 2013 for hospice services to Medicare. "Today's resolution represents the largest amount ever recovered under the False Claims Act from a provider of hospice services," said Acting Assistant Attorney General Chad A. Readler of the Department of Justice's Civil Division. The DOJ "will continue to ensure that this valuable benefit is used to assist those who need it, and not as an opportunity to line the pockets of those who seek to abuse it."

The settlement, which also resolves allegations from three different whistleblower complaints, should remind hospices to be "very careful and very clear with your documentation," urges attorney Robert Markette Jr. with Hall Render in Indianapolis. The DOJ announcement shows the feds are "trying to make a point about hospice" and their intentions to intensify their enforcement in the industry, he says.

"Hospice providers need to understand they are in the crosshairs," Markette adds.

"Recent enforcement actions make it clear that the 'honeymoon' for hospices is over," stresses Washington, D.C.-based healthcare attorney Eliza beth Hogue. "It's now open season on hospices despite their mission, just like other providers."

Hospices should be aware they could face settlements far steeper than the one VITAS is paying. This can actually be viewed as "a favorable settlement for VITAS, in as much as the potential claims were far more substantial than $75 million," points out attorney Brian Daucher with Sheppard Mullin in Costa Mesa, California.

In addition to the settlement, VITAS has also entered into a five-year Corporate Integrity Agreement with the HHS Office of Inspector General, the DOJ notes in the release. The amount of the settlement to be shared with the multiple whistleblowers, Laura Spottiswood, Barbara Urick, and Charles Gonzales, "has not yet been determined," the DOJ says.

"This litigation and settlement demonstrate the commitment of the U.S. Attorney's Office to investigate and pursue hospice providers engaging in practices that abuse the Medicare hospice benefit," said Acting U.S. Attorney Thomas M. Larson of the Western District of Missouri in the release. "The integrity of the Medicare program must not be compromised by a hospice provider's financial selfinterest."