Breon Peace, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, announced agreements with several entities that provide dialysis treatment and services to patients suffering from chronic kidney failure, also known as end-stage renal disease or ESRD. The defendants have agreed to pay a total of more than $9.5 million to settle civil fraud allegations that they caused double-billing to the Medicaid Program for certain medications. Under the terms of the agreements, these providers, including DaVita Healthcare Partners, Inc., Bay Ridge Sunset Park Dialysis Center, Inc., Midwood Chayim Aruchim Dialysis Associates, Inc., New York Artificial Kidney Center, Inc., The Rogosin Institute, for itself and as successor-in-interest to Nephrology Foundation of Brooklyn, Terence Cardinal Cooke Health Care Center, New York Renal Associates, Inc., and Dialysis Clinic, Inc., have paid $3,967,083.38 to the United States under the federal False Claims Act and $5,629,151.20 to New York State under New York State’s False Claims Act.
The Government’s investigation revealed that, from 2000 through 2010, the dialysis clinics and management companies improperly caused claims to be made to Medicaid by retail pharmacies for certain injectable drugs that were administered during the course of dialysis treatment for ESRD. The injectable drugs had already been paid for by Medicaid as part of the composite dialysis payments received by the dialysis clinics and management companies for dialysis treatments.
