Northwest Anesthesiology and Pain Services (NWAP) has agreed to pay $999,999 to resolve potential violations related to the submission of claims for reimbursement to Medicare for services rendered by its independently contracted pain management practices. NWAP is an anesthesiology service provider in Houston and surrounding areas. The allegations include violations of the False Claims Act (FCA) and the physician self-referral law (aka Stark Law). In 2019, NWAP’s former president Donald Carmichael hired Stacey Green and her company Remedy Physician Solutions as an independent contractor to manage NWAP’s pain management practices. NWAP gave Green authority over the practices’ compensation and discretionary productivity bonus payments.
Following an internal investigation, NWAP claims Green instructed NWAP’s billing company to calculate bonus payments based on lab referrals minus costs, fees and expenses rather than calculating bonuses properly based on the practices’ productivity as provided for in their agreements. NWAP suspected this was done to increase total collections, which formed the basis of Green’s management fee. From Jan. 1, 2019, through Dec. 31, 2021, NWAP reported it paid approximately $1.8 million in bonus payments as a result of the contractor’s misconduct. The government alleges such actions created improper financial relationships between NWAP and its independently contracted pain management practices as NWAP was paying bonuses to these practices from its lab revenue as allegedly thinly veiled kickbacks for referrals.
