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Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

PHYSICIAN NOTES:

Medicare Strike Force Nails Physical Therapist Who Helped Overbill Medicare by $2.375 Million

Published on Tue Jan 12, 2010

Plus: CMS debuts new Medicare tool that helps you spell out confusing terms, enrollment information, and payment rules. The Medicare Strike Force has struck again, this time focusing on a Michigan-based physical therapist who pled guilty to conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud. The therapist faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for creating fictitious therapy files in which she documented physical and occupational therapy services to Medicare patients, even though she hadn't actually delivered the therapy. In total, the therapist collected over $127,000 for creating the false documentation, which allowed the home health agency that employed her to collect about $2.375 million from Medicare, according to a Jan. 25, 2010 Dept. of Justice news release. (Editor's note: To read the Dept. of Justice news release, visit: www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/January/10-crm-083.html.)
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