California nursing facility agrees to pay $3.8 million for alleged kickbacks to doctors
A Riverside, California skilled nursing facility and its management healthcare services company agreed to pay California and the US $3.825 million to resolve allegations that they paid kickbacks to physicians to induce referrals, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Wednesday.
The companies will pay $3,228,300 to the federal government and $596,700 to California.
Between 2009 and 2019, Alta Vista Healthcare & Wellness Centre, LLC allegedly gave physicians "extravagant gifts, including expensive dinners for the physicians and their spouses, golf trips, limousine rides, massages, e-reader tablets, and gift cards worth up to $1,000" under the direction of Rockport Healthcare Services, a news release from the Justice Department says. The groups "submitted and caused the submission of false claims to Medicare and Medicaid," prosecutors said.
"Separately, Alta Vista paid these physicians monthly stipends of $2,500 to $4,000, purportedly for their services as medical directors. At least one purpose of these gifts and payments was to induce these physicians to refer patients to Alta Vista," according to the U.S. Attorney's Office
The settlement came as a result of a whistleblower complaint. A former Alta Vista accounting employee, Neyirys Orozco, in 2015 filed the complaint and will receive $581,094 "as her share of the federal government’s recovery in this case," the Justice Department said.
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Kickbacks are illegal referrals by physicians to patients in trade for financial or service gains. Anti-kickback statutes are criminal laws protecting patients from these types of schemes. In another case in March, a Florida man living in Puerto Rico was charged for his role in a "$101 million durable medical equipment kickback scheme."
California Attorney General Rob Bonta said the settlement in Riverside demonstrates the state's commitment to "protecting the integrity of Medi-Cal, and the taxpayer dollars that support the program."
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Brian M. Boynton, a principal deputy assistant attorney general and head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division, said the department "is committed to preventing illegal financial relationships that undermine the integrity of our public healthcare programs."
"Kickbacks can impair the independence of physician decision-making and waste taxpayer dollars," Boynton said.
Contact Kayla Jimenez at kjimenez@usatoday.com. Follow her on Twitter at @kaylajjimenez.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Alta Vista Healthcare, Rockport Healthcare Services pays $3.8 in kickback settlement
