Dignity Health agreed to reimburse $37 million in order to resolve its allegations. The Northern Californian hospital was accused of overbilling the Federal Medical program.
The charges include 12 hospitals that come under the San-Francisco based Health system such as Mercy General, Mercy San Juan and many others. Some of these hospitals are alleged of overcharging for simply invasive spinal cord compression operations.
Kathleen Hawkin, ex-employee of Dignityl Health sued the hospital. The former worker asserted that the health care system proposed an exaggerated and false statement of Medicare from 2006 to 2010. The whistle blower who filed the suit will get $6.25 million from the total settlement payment.
Whistle blower is a person who informs the government officials about any illegal activity. The person can sue the corrupt organization on behalf of federal government. In this case, Kathleen Hawkin is a whistle blower.
Ivan Negroni, Health and Human Services researcher stated that health care systems that admit patients just to increase the revenue of the hospitals should be answerable for every single thing. Hospitals should treat patients on the basis of what is good for them instead of what is beneficial for the system.
Dignity Health is considered as one of the five biggest hospital systems of the country. The spokesman of the health care chain informed that the organization resolved this issue in order to get rid of the court cases
Moreover, Dignity Health also decided to hire an auditor specially to re-examine all the Medicare claims. The defrayal will solve a disagreement that started in 2009.
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