HealthOne Critical Care Transport Service, Inc. d/b/a MedicOne Medical Response (“MedicOne”) of Marion, Illinois, has agreed to pay $302,124.37 in a civil settlement agreement resolving allegations the company improperly billed Medicare for scheduled, non-emergency ambulance transportation. The government alleges MedicOne’s former location in Mount Vernon, Illinois, routinely billed Medicare for non-emergency ambulance transports to regularly scheduled dialysis treatments when the services did not meet Medicare requirements. MedicOne typically picked up patients at their residences or nursing homes and transported the patients to and from dialysis treatment three times per week, sometimes for years.
The government alleges many of MedicOne’s non-emergency ambulance transports did not meet Medicare requirements for coverage because the services were not medically necessary, particularly when the patients safely rode in other forms of transportation — such as personal vehicles, medical transport cars, and wheelchair vans — to medical appointments and social outings. The Medicare program paid MedicOne hundreds of dollars per round-trip ambulance transport taking patients to dialysis treatments. To resolve the allegations, MedicOne will pay the United States $302,124.37 for claims submitted to Medicare between April 2016 and January 2020.
