Don’t Keep The Change, Doc

Meaning, don’t just pocket the difference when the government overpays you for healthcare goods or services.

Recently, a medical group agreed to pay $450,000 to settle allegations that it refused to return $175,000 in overpayments that it received from federal healthcare programs like Medicare and Medicaid. Here’s the government’s press release.

The overpayments at issue tend to happen in medical practices when two insurers share responsibility for a payment, and one pays too much.

But the thing is, you have to return the surplus, whether it’s big or small; you can’t keep it, and you can’t dawdle, either. If you do, you may incur significant liability under the False Claims Act, as we’ve explained before.

The rule is that you have sixty days to return the money once you know (or should know) about the overpayment. For more on the 60-day rule, see here.

In this case, the government alleged that the medical group failed to return the money despite repeated warnings, until it learned the Justice Department was investigating. Apparently, it didn’t know that one of its employees had filed a whistleblower lawsuit, which the government joined and took over. (For more on that process, see here.) The former employee will receive $90,000 of the settlement proceeds, or twenty percent.

This isn’t the first time the feds have moved to enforce the 60-day rule, and it sure won’t be the last. They’re just getting started.