Qui Tam (False Claims Act) Lawsuit Settled for $7.9 Million
Lourdes Medical Center of Burlington County, Pennsylvania has settled a qui tam (False Claims Act) lawsuit. The lawsuit was filed some four years ago and the whistleblower alleged two of Lourdes Medical Center’s suburb hospitals, Lourdes Medical and Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center, inflated charges for the treatment of Medicare patients for outlier payments, according to Phillyburbs.com.
Outlier payments are paid to hospitals by Medicare when the hospitals’ expenses exceed the standard Medicare reimburse amount. The practice known as “turbo charging” occurs when hospitals manipulate their expenses at a rate that exceeds their actual expenses and submit the inflated or turbo charged expenses to Medicare for an increase in outlier payments from the government. The end result, tax payers are paying more because of this fraudulent practice.
If you have information about a hospital that has “turbo charged” its expenses and submitted fraudulent bills to Medicare, then you may be entitled to recover as a whistleblower under the False Claims Act. Contact one of our qui tam attorneys for a free legal consultation.