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Home Health & Hospice Week

Lawsuits:

Whistleblower Lawsuit Signals Hospice Enforcement Ramp-Up

Published on Fri Jan 06, 2012

Get ready to defend your hospice claims if you treat long-stay patients. If you had any doubts that the feds have their eye on the hospice industry, a newly unsealed whistleblower lawsuit joined by the government should put those doubts to rest. Former AseraCare Hospice executive director Marsha Brown and clinical manager Dawn Richardson originally filed suit against the Plano, Texas-based hospice chain in 2009. The U.S. joined the qui tam suit, which was unsealed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama last month. AseraCare operates 65 locations in 19 states and is owned by long-term care company Golden Living, the complaint says. The feds accuse AseraCare of a number of misdeeds culminating in billing Medicare for patients who were ineligible for hospice due to the six-month terminal prognosis requirement. For example: Clinical staff were pressured to meet census goals established by the corporate office, the complaint [...]
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