From Fortune Magazine:



Delaware’s Christiana Care Health System, has agreed to pay more than $47 million to settle whistleblower allegations of providing kickbacks to outside doctors in exchange for patient referrals and resulting in fraudulent Medicaid billing. Ronald Sherman filed a lawsuit against the health system claiming its employees provided care for referred patients at no cost or below fair market value, then billed insurers for their services leading to a misrepresented Medicaid billing. According to Sherman, Christiana Care paid kickbacks to the doctors for the unearned billings, thus breaking anti-kickback laws and state and federal false claims statutes. This alleged fraudulent activity took place between 2011 and 2017 in five different departments. Christiana Care agreed to pay $32 million to the federal government, as well as about $11 million to the state of Delaware. Sherman, the whistleblower, will receive over $12 million from the settlement. The health system’s spokesman stated that the settlement does not involve an admission of liability. Furthermore, a former federal prosecutor’s report commissioned by Sherman’s attorneys suggested that Sherman was fired following expressing concerns about the billing practices Christiana Care continued to engage in, even after an earlier settlement in 2010. In 2010, the health system paid $3.3 million to settle a similar whistleblower suit. The settlement in 2023 may signal potential future whistleblower lawsuits against hospitals operating under similar practices.



Original: Delaware hospital system Christiana Care settles Medicaid fraud whistleblower suit for $47 million