Home Health & Hospice Week
DOJ Probes Amedisys Again, This Time Over Hospice
The feds are combining two of their favorite investigation targets — hospice patients and publicly traded home care companies.
Baton Rouge-based Amedisys Inc. received a subpoena from the Department of Justice on May 21, it says in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. “The Subpoena requests the delivery of information regarding 53 identified hospice patients to the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts,” the company says in its May 28 filing. “It also requests the delivery of documents relating to the Company’s hospice clinical and business operations and related compliance activities.” The subpoena covers the period from Jan. 1, 2011, through the present.
Amedisys settled charges of improper billing for $150 million just last year (see Eli’s HCW, Vol. XXIII, No. 16). Those billing violations “were the alleged result of management pressure on nurses and therapists to provide care based on the financial benefits to Amedisys, rather than the needs of patients,” the DOJ said in a statement at the time. The charges were first reported by the Wall Street Journal, which sparked a Senate hearing and the DOJ investigation (see Eli’s HCW, Vol. XIX, No. 19)
Home Health & Hospice Week
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DOJ Probes Amedisys Again, This Time Over Hospice
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