MASSDEVICE ON CALL — A pair of Ohio healthcare clinics agreed to pay a collective $4.4 million to settle federal allegations that they defrauded Medicare by performing and getting reimbursement for unnecessary stenting.
EMH Regional Medical Center and North Ohio Heart Center were accused of performing "unnecessary cardiac procedures on Medicare patients, angioplasty and stent-placement procedures on patients who had heart disease but whose blood vessels were not sufficiently occluded to require the particular procedures at issue."
EMH agreed to pay about $3.8 million and NOHC will pay about $660,000, Heartwire reported.
The investigation into the clinics began when a former manager informed the Dept. of Justice of higher-than-usual rates of PCIs and stenting at the clinics.
It was later reported that the PCI and stenting rate between the 2 facilities was 4 times higher than the national average.
The DOJ in recent years has taken a closer look at stenting around the country, investigating a bevy of hospitals and healthcare providers for potential misconduct.
Last month Pennsylvania’s Excela Health network, associated with more than 140 cases of unnecessary stenting and angioplasties, repaid almost $2 million in Medicare reimbursements to the federal government.
Just over a year ago a Maryland hospital, Peninsula Regional, paid $1.8 million to settle allegations that senior leadership failed to properly address complaints of unnecessary stenting.
Dr. Mark Midei, a cardiologist at St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson, Md., was accused of implanting unnecessary stents in as many as 369 patients. St. Joseph Medical Center agreed to pay $22 million to the federal government to settle a whistle-blower lawsuit accusing it of bilking Medicare for the unnecessary coronary stent implantations.
In June 2011 a whistle-blower called out a Tennessee doc and 2 hospitals for allegations of unnecessary stenting and accused hospital leadership of attacking physicians who tried to oppose the scheme by giving them bad-faith peer reviews leading to their elimination from the medical staff.
Translating recall letters for patients
The letters that implanted cardiac device makers send to inform patients of recalls or potential device glitches "may be incomprehensible to most patients" due to the technical language used, researchers said.
Read more
U.S. healthcare spending on its way up
U.S. healthcare spending may be ready to bust out of its rut, clearing a 3-year lull and returning to stronger levels after millions of Americans gain access to health insurance through federal reforms.
Read more
San Francisco tech company lands patents for device-app combo that isolates "patient zero"
San Fransisco-based technology company Fullpower landed key patents pertaining to a sensor-application combination that may be able to identify an individual as a source point of a disease, track down close and notify them of the potential exposure, further recommending courses of action or medical management.
Read more