Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt announced that Life Care Center of Bridgeton, on October 29, 2020, entered into a civil settlement agreement with his Medicaid Fraud Control Unit for failing to provide necessary care to residents and submitting false claims to MO HealthNet, the Missouri Medicaid program. The skilled nursing facility failed to provide the necessary care for three residents’ pressure ulcers, or bedsores. Two of the residents’ pressure ulcers were so severe that the residents’ bones were exposed. Bridgeton Operations LLC d/b/a Life Care Center of Bridgeton (“Bridgeton”) will pay MO HealthNet restitution and penalties amounting to $150,000. Bridgeton’s false claims for its failure to provide all necessary care to three residents amounted to $6,176.60. The nursing facility has also agreed to pay a civil monetary penalty of $143.823.40. Nursing facilities submit claims to MO HealthNet for a per diem fee in exchange for providing all necessary care to each resident. The Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit found Bridgeton submitted claims for thirty-eight dates of services from May 1, 2018 through September 1, 2018 for three residents when care was not documented as provided in whole. The failure of a nursing facility to document that it provided necessary care to residents in whole, including all treatment, services, and supplies, for which it bills MO HealthNet amounts to a false claim for each date of service.
