Not Golden Living At All
`Pull through` practices seem to be occurring more frequently--and after what LabCorp and the rest of the lot saw in the investigation initiated in November of last year, you would think other companies would have learned the lesson that if you`re going to bilk Medicare or Medicaid, eventually you`re going to get caught. Apparently--not so much. The Justice Department joined the whistle-blower suit filed in federal court in Birmingham Alabama last Tuesday seeking three times the damages as well as a penalty between $5,500 and $11,000 per claim. The U.S. Attorney in Birmingham Joyce White Vance stated in an email ``Medicare benefits, including the hospice benefits, are intended only for those individuals who are appropriately qualified. We must protect the public welfare and tax-funded benefits programs``. The federal complaint is part of an onslaught of investigations regarding suspected hospice fraud by not only the Justice Department, but also by the Office of the Inspector General as well as the overseers of the Medicare program, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services--just as the Senate intervened on behalf of Medicare and Medicaid when whistle-blower suits were filed against LabCorp, Quest Diagnostic and United Health Care`s `pull through` practices.
Because of Golden Living and its subsidiaries AseraCare`s alleged fraudulent enrollment of terminal patients; they received an inflow of patients who according to the plaintiffs in the suit, were not dying. This tactic was used in order to keep non-terminal patients on hospice in an effort to exploit the amount of Medicare reimbursements. The plaintiffs have claimed that anywhere from 36 to 79% of patients that AseraCare claimed to be dying between the years of 2005 and 2009 in three of its southern Alabama branches were actually discharged from the facility very much alive. AseraCare`s general counsel has called the intervention of the Justice Department a disappointment, claiming the suit has no merit. Blair Jackson, Golden Living`s VP of Communications issued a statement saying ``We believe that the allegations are without merit or are not violations of the law, and we intend to vigorously defend ourselves against all claims``.