False Diagnoses & Fraud

Report Fraud with Our Atlanta Medical Upcoding Attorney

Shocking though it may be, some doctors diagnose their patients with non-existent illnesses or give them medical treatments unnecessarily, just in order to get paid for treating the patients.

If you know about a doctor who is spreading misery by making up fake illnesses and ordering treatments for patients who don’t need them, you need to stop the fraud. As a whistleblower, you can file suit under the False Claims Act. You can blow the whistle on the callous behavior of the medical provider, and at the same time you can get between 15% and 30% of what the Government collects back from the medical provider.

Find out whether you can file a claim under the False Claims Act by calling Lee Wallace at The Wallace Law Firm, LLC.

The High Price of Low Behavior

Some medical providers are willing to sell out their own clients to get more money from Medicare, Medicaid, and medical insurance companies. But unnecessary medical treatments come with a price tag, and not just a financial one. Patients who are given drugs they don’t need have side effects they don’t need. Patients subjected to unnecessary chemotherapy become ill unnecessarily. Even patients who merely have extra doctors’ appointments for no legitimate reason lose hours of their lives, for no legitimate reason.

Appalling examples of hospitals and doctors accused of diagnosing patients with fake illnesses and providing services (even surgeries) that were not needed:

• Unnecessary surgeries: A Heartless Hospital was accused of performing unnecessary heart surgeries. DOJ said that King’s Daughters Medical Center of Ashland, Kentucky was inserting unnecessary coronary stents and performing unnecessary diagnostic catheterizations. The hospital denied wrongdoing, but paid $40.9 million to settle the case.
• Fake diagnosis of multiple sclerosis and brain lesions: A whistleblower filed a False Claims Act suit against a Florida doctor and Baptist Health System in Jacksonville, where he worked. The hospital paid $2.5 million to address accusations that Dr. Orr — who was the chief doctor of Baptist Health System — was intentionally diagnosing patients with multiple sclerosis and brain lesions. The whistleblower, who had been a referral coordinator for the doctor’s practice, said that the physician was actually changing patient records to suggest they needed tests and treatment that in fact they did not need. The Government paid the whistleblower $424,155 for bringing the False Claims Act lawsuit that alerted them to this behavior.
• Fake diagnosis of cancer: A doctor in Detroit has been indicted for allegedly making up false diagnoses of cancer for his patients so that he could treat them — and bill Medicare, Medicaid and insurance companies. According to the criminal complaint filed against the doctor, he fabricated cancer diagnoses and then treated his patients with chemotherapy they didn’t need for illnesses they never had. The physician and his company demanded $35 million worth of reimbursement from Medicare over just a two-year period.
• Extra, Unnecessary Chemotherapy: A Kentucky cancer clinic extended the time over which patients had to get chemotherapy, and DOJ says the reason was that Elizabethtown Hematology Oncology, PLC, wanted to bill Medicare and Medicaid for more. The cancer clinic wound up paying the Government $3.7 million to resolve these accusations that the clinic treated its own patients with a callous disregard for their health and humanity. The whistleblower who brought the case, a doctor, was paid $283,412.90 out of the amount the Government recovered as a result of the lawsuit.

To find out more about lawsuits by whistleblowers who want to stop doctors who are telling patients they need treatments and drugs and equipment that they do not really need, call our Atlanta medical upcoding lawyer today. Lee Wallace has over 25 years of experience representing brave whistleblowers who are not afraid to stand up to fraud.

Reach our office at (404) 550-4615.