Blessing Hospital In Quincy Hit with $2.8 Million Settlement over False Medicare/Medicaid Claims

By Benjamin Cox on August 17, 2021 at 8:56pm

A West Central Illinois hospital has agreed to pay the government over $2.8 million to resolve false Medicare and Medicaid claims over unnecessary procedures performed by a doctor.

Blessing Hospital in Quincy, Illinois, has agreed to pay approximately $2.82 million to resolve allegations that it violated the False Claims Act by submitting claims for medically unnecessary cardiac catheterization procedures performed by a physician who no longer practices in the Central District of Illinois. Today’s settlement resulted from a voluntary disclosure by Blessing Hospital.

The settlement resolves allegations that Blessing Hospital obtained payments from Medicare and Medicaid for the facility component of cardiac catheterization procedures performed between August 1, 2012, and August 30, 2018, in which the physician implanted medically unnecessary coronary arterial stents. The claims resolved by the settlement are allegations only, and there has been no determination of liability.

The settlement was the result of a coordinated effort by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of Illinois, the Civil Division of the Department of Justice, the Inspector General’s Office of the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Illinois State Police Medicaid Fraud Control Unit. Assistant U.S. Attorney John Hoelzer and Department of Justice Senior Trial Counsel Laurie Oberembt represented the government during the settlement process.