Home Health & Hospice Week

A physician and his home health agency-owning siblings are facing fraud charges not often seen these days — violations of the Stark Law.

Reminder: The Stark Law prohibits payment for designated health services, including home health, if such services are furnished by an entity that has a financial relationship with the referring physician — or “an immediate family member of the referring physician,” the Department of Justice explains in a release. “Such financial relationships can cause overutilization of those services and compromise the physician’s professional judgment.”

From 2008 to 2014, Chicago-area physician Conrado Castor referred numerous Medicare patients to three HHAs owned by his sister Aurea Duncan and brother Jacob Castor: American Home Health Services Inc., Adarna Home Health Care Services Inc., and Amore Home Health Care Services Inc. Medicare paid more than $1.2 million to the northern Indiana HHAs for Dr. Castor’s home health referrals, the DOJ alleges.

“Medical decisions should be based on the best interests of patients and not on the personal financial interests of referring physicians and their family members,” U.S. Attorney Thomas L. Kirsch II says in the release. “My Office will continue to make it a high priority to file civil suits to recover funds that were paid out under the Medicare program because of health care fraud.”