Queen's pays $2.5M to settle Feds' claims - Sacramento Business Journal:

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million to settle lawsuits thatalleged Hawaii’s largesft hospital overbilled government healtnh care programs for prescription federal prosecutors said Wednesday. The settlement was the resulg of two whistleblower lawsuits brought by formefrpharmacy technicians, who alleged that Queen’ws overbilled the state’s Medicare and Medicaid programs, as well as TRICARE, the federao health insurance program for military according to a news releass from U.S. Attorney Edward H. Kubo Jr. The lawsuits were filesd under the federal and state FalsedClaims Acts, which allow the governmeny to claim up to triple the plus penalties, for submitting false claims to governmen t programs.
The two former employees alleg Queen’s submitted fake bills for anti-psychotic medicationsa that were dispensed by the hospital pharmacy from 1999 to 2002 and were authorizecd bya doctor, but not necessarily by a psychiatrist, as required. The hospital was also accuseed of billing from 1999 to 2006 for services provide by medical residents who were supposed to be supervised byothe doctors, but that the supervision did not occur, Kubo’ss office said.
Under the settlement, Queen’ws paid $2 million to the federak government, which shared $400,000 of the proceeds with the twoforme employees, and $500,000 to the attorneys for the two Queen’s will also maintain a compliance program to ensure its billings conform to the rulesx for five years under a corporate integrity agreement with the U.S. Departmeng of Health and Human Services. Queen'as issued this statement: " denies any intentional wrongdoing, but after five years of discussiond and negotiations withthe government, has agreed to settle this matterr so that its resourced may be spent on providin quality health care rather than on legakl fees.
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