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Press Release

United States Files False Claims Act Lawsuit
Against the Largest For-Profit Hospice Chain in the United States

For Immediate Release
Office of Public Affairs
Hospice Chain Allegedly Billed for Ineligible Patients and Inflated Levels of Care

The United States has filed suit against Chemed Corporation and various wholly owned hospice subsidiaries, including Vitas Hospice Services LLC and Vitas Healthcare Corporation, alleging false Medicare billings for hospice services, the Justice Department announced today. Vitas is the largest for-profit hospice chain in the United States and provides hospice services to patients in 18 states (Alabama, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin) and the District of Columbia. Chemed, which is based in Cincinnati, Ohio and also owns Roto-Rooter Group Inc., a national drain cleaning and plumbing service company, acquired Vitas in 2004.

 

The Medicare hospice benefit is available for patients who elect palliative treatment (medical care focused on providing patients with relief from pain and stress) for a terminal illness, and have a life expectancy of six months or less if their disease runs its normal course. When a Medicare patient receives hospice services, that individual no longer receives services designed to cure his or her illness. Medicare reimburses for different levels of hospice care, including continuous home care, also called crisis care, which is available for patients who are experiencing acute medical symptoms resulting in a brief period of crisis. Crisis care is available when a patient’s acute medical symptoms require the immediate and short-term provision of skilled nursing services in order to keep the patient at home. The reimbursement rate for crisis care services is the highest daily rate a hospice can bill Medicare, and hospices are paid hundreds of dollars more on a daily basis for each patient they certify as having received crisis care services rather than routine hospice services.

 

The government’s complaint alleges that Chemed and Vitas Hospice knowingly submitted or caused the submission of false claims to Medicare for crisis care services that were not necessary, not actually provided, or not performed in accordance with Medicare requirements. According to the complaint, the companies set goals for the number of crisis care days that were to be billed to Medicare. The companies also allegedly used aggressive marketing tactics and pressured staff to increase the numbers of crisis care claims submitted to Medicare, without regard to whether the services were appropriate or were actually being provided. For example, the complaint contends that Vitas billed three straight days of crisis care for a patient, even though the patient’s medical records do not indicate that the patient required crisis care and, indeed, reflect that the patient was playing bingo part of the time.

 

In addition, the government’s complaint alleges that Chemed and Vitas knowingly submitted or caused the submission of false claims for hospice care for patients who were not terminally ill. The companies allegedly paid bonuses to staff based on the number of patients enrolled in the program and based on patients who were admitted for longer lengths of stay, and took adverse employment actions against marketing representatives who did not meet monthly hospice admissions goals. According to the Complaint, these business practices resulted in the admission of patients who were not eligible for hospice care. As an example, the Complaint alleges that Vitas admitted a patient to hospice who showed no signs of a terminal condition and was described in Vitas’ own records as, “very healthy given her age.”

 

As a result of the conduct alleged in the complaint, the government contends that Chemed and Vitas violated the False Claims Act and misspent tens of millions of taxpayer dollars from the Medicare program.

 

“The Medicare hospice benefit is intended to provide patients nearing the end of life with pain management and other palliative care to make them as comfortable as possible,” said Stuart F. Delery, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division. “Too often, however, we hear reports of companies that abuse this critical service by using aggressive marketing tactics to push patients into services they don’t need in order to get higher reimbursements from the government. The Department of Justice will take swift action to protect taxpayer dollars and make sure that Medicare benefits are available to those who truly need them.”

 

The United States’ suit is part of the government’s emphasis on combating health care fraud and another step for the Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Team (HEAT) initiative, which was announced by Attorney General Eric Holder and Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services in May 2009. The partnership between the two departments has focused efforts to reduce and prevent Medicare and Medicaid financial fraud through enhanced cooperation. One of the most powerful tools in that effort is the False Claims Act, which the Justice Department has used to recover more than $10.3 billion since January 2009 in cases involving fraud against federal health care programs. The Justice Department’s total recoveries in False Claims Act cases since January 2009 are over $14.2 billion.

 

This matter was investigated by the Commercial Litigation Branch of the Justice Department’s Civil Division, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Missouri, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, and the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General. The claims asserted against Chemed and Vitas are allegations only, and there has been no determination of liability.

 

The lawsuit is captioned United States v. Vitas Hospice Services LLC, et al. (W.D. Mo.).

Updated September 15, 2014

Press Release Number: 13-500