EMH Regional Medical Center (EMH) has agreed to pay the United States $3,863,857 and North Ohio Heart Center Inc. (NOHC) has agreed to pay the United States $541,870 to settle allegations that they submitted false claims to Medicare.
EMH is a non-profit community hospital system located in Lorain County, Ohio. During the relevant time period, NOHC was an independent physician group located in Lorain County that practiced at EMH. The settlement resolves allegations that between 2001 and 2006 EMH and NOHC performed unnecessary cardiac procedures on Medicare patients. Specifically, the United States alleged that EMH and NOHC performed angioplasty and stent placement procedures on patients who had heart disease but whose blood vessels were not sufficiently occluded to require the particular procedures at issue.
This False Claims Act case was filed by the former manager of EMH’s catheterization and electrophysiology laboratory. As a result of the settlement, the whistleblower will receive $660,859 of the United States’ recovery.
For more information on this case, click here: http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2013/January/13-civ-023.html