Hospital Agrees to $4 Million Settlement of Voluntary Disclosures

WILMINGTON, Del. – The United States announced today that it has settled claims under the False Claims Act with St. Francis Hospital for improperly billing Medicare and Medicaid for patients admitted into its inpatient rehabilitation unit in Wilmington, Delaware between 2007 and 2010, when admission was not medically necessary and/or the services provided did not fully qualify for reimbursement.  St. Francis closed the inpatient rehabilitation unit in early 2011.  The settlement agreement also resolves separate allegations that St. Francis employed an individual who was excluded from participating in any Federal health care programs. 

After it discovered the issues, St. Francis took corrective action to resolve the improper payments, and voluntarily disclosed the issues to the United States Attorney’s Office and the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services.  St. Francis has agreed to pay $4,081,816.00 to the United States and $199,894.00 to the State of Delaware to resolve the matter.

“This resolution is an example of how voluntary self-disclosure benefits both the government and providers who report potential fraud and compliance problems,” said Charles M. Oberly, III, United States Attorney for the District of Delaware.  “The government was able to recover monetary damages for compliance issues that might not have been revealed without St. Francis’ self-disclosure, and St. Francis can move forward without concern about lingering liabilities related to this conduct.”

This matter was handled by Assistant United States Attorneys Jennifer Hall and Shannon Hanson, Deputy Attorney General Tiphanie Miller of the State of Delaware Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, and Lisa Veigel, an attorney with the United States Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General.