A Florida home health agency accused of improperly billing Medicare has agreed to pay the U.S. government $2.1 million to resolve the false claims.
According to a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court in Southern Florida, Signature HomeNow allegedly knowingly filed false or fraudulent claims to Medicare between 2013 and 2017. The complaint claims the company tried to bill Medicare for home health services to beneficiaries who were not homebound, did not require certain skilled care and did not have appropriate face-to-face encounters required to receive home health services.
“The fraudulent billing of Medicare will not be tolerated,” Juan Antonio Gonzalez, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, said in a statement. “We will continue to aggressively pursue cases against those who erode the fabric of our federal health care programs by submitting false claims to Medicare.”
The complaint against Signature HomeNow came to the attention of the Department of Health and Human Services through its Office of Inspector General hotline.
Both the U.S. Department of Justice and Department of Labor have been cracking down on Medicare fraud and kickback schemes involving home care firms over the past several months. In March, a South Florida man pleaded guilty to a nearly $900,000 kickback scheme involving home health providers who fraudulently charged Medicare beneficiaries for services they did not need.
