Home Health & Hospice Week

Tender Loving Care Health Care Services Inc. is trying to put behind it allegations that its Maryland franchise cooked the books to fraudulently obtain more Medicaid reimbursement. Lake Success, NY-based TLC has agreed to pay about $1.3 million - a refund of more than $555,000 in overpayments and a fine of almost $750,000, according to Maryland Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. An investigation by the AG's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit found that from 1993 to 1997, the former manager of TLC's Maryland franchise inflated the number of health care employees on payroll documents it submitted to the state, Curran says. "As a result, Medicaid significantly overpaid TLC for its personnel costs." The extra employees added to the payroll were actually employed by the former manager at other, unrelated companies, or were employees of the Washington DC franchise the manager formerly oversaw, Curran says. TLC says it had no knowledge of the alleged fraud, and admits no wrongdoing in the settlement, the AG says.