BLACKFEATHERS
http://www.trollkingdom.net/forum/showthread.php?t=33021
Notice the date Blackfeathers said he was leaving?? This is why.
Medicare fraud case settled
Brooks Rexroat
Herald-Citizen Staff
NASHVILLE -- Cookeville-based medical supplier Allied Home Medical Inc. has agreed to pay a nearly $1 million settlement concerning allegations the company filed improper claims to Medicare and the Tennessee Medicaid program.
The $930,075 payment comes with no admission of wrongdoing or liability on the part of Allied, according to the United States Attorney's Office.
Allegations that Allied violated the False Claims Act stem from claims for K0011 power wheelchairs, classified as medically unnecessary for the recipients, between Jan. 2001 and Dec. 2002.
"We alleged that wheelchairs were going to people who didn't medically require them," said Robert C. Watson, asst. U.S. Attorney for the middle district of Tennessee. "Calculations were made based on a very small sample of claims, and there were, I believe, 41 cases out of that small sample."
The settlement outlines several payment dates, Watson said, and the company has been on schedule.
The False Claims Act was enacted in 1863 and was defined by the United States Supreme Court in 1943 as a means to help the government recouperate losses due to fraud.
The penalty -- had wrongdoing been established -- could have been between $5,000-$10,000 for each count, said U.S. Attorney's Office press information officer Deb Phillips.
"Our office would have had to show they knowingly submitted false claims," Phillips said.
Allied Home Medical representatives did not return repeated calls from the Herald-Citizen.
Inc. Magazine, a business trade publication, ranked Allied at number 216 in its 2004 report on the nation's top 500 fastest growing companies. According to the magazine's profile, Allied showed a 672 percent growth in revenue over a five-year span ending in 2003. Company revenues topped $7.6 million in that year.
Published September 30, 2005 12:44 PM CDT