Date Filed:
Monday, May 8, 2006
Settlement Amount:
$2,200,000
A settlement has been reached in a whistleblower class action lawsuit brought against El Centro Regional Medical Center who is accused of defrauding Medicare.
The whistleblower will receive $375,000.
The original lawsuit was filed in May 2006. The United States alleged that the 165-bed acute care hospital fraudulently inflated its charges to Medicare patients to obtain larger reimbursements from the federal health care program. The settlement covers claims submitted by the hospital for short inpatient admissions, usually of one day or less, when the services should have been billed on an outpatient “observation” basis or as emergency room visits.
