A cancer treatment facility in Kansas City, Kan., has settled with the U.S. Justice Department in a Medicare claim case.
According to a news release from the U.S. Justice Department, Hope Cancer Institute of Kansas City, Kan., and Dr. Ray Sadasivan, the owner of the institute, have agreed to pay $2.9 million to resolve allegations they submitted claims to Medicare, Medicaid and the Federal Employee Health Benefits Programs for drugs and services that were not provided to beneficiaries.
The news release from the U.S. Justice Department stated that the settlement resolves allegations that, between 2007 and 2011, Dr. Sadasivan and Hope Cancer Institute submitted claims to federal health benefit programs for the chemotherapy drugs Rituxan, Avastin and Taxotere that were not provided to federal health care beneficiaries.
The employees of Hope Cancer Institute allegedly were instructed to bill for a predetermined amount of cancer drugs at certain dosage levels, when lower dosages of these drugs were actually provided to beneficiaries. As a result of these instructions, Hope Cancer Institute submitted inflated claims to federal health care programs for drugs that were not actually provided to patients, the U.S. Justice Department news release stated.
The settlement resolves a lawsuit filed by three former employees of Hope Cancer Institute, under the whistleblower provisions of the False Claims Act, which allow private citizens with knowledge of false claims to file suit on behalf of the government and to share in any recovery.
The Justice Department stated in the news release that the claims settled by this agreement are allegations only; there has been no determination of liability.
