“Mayo Clinic has reached a settlement with the federal government on a billing error issue. While Mayo Clinic corrected the error prior to knowledge of the Department of Justice’s suit and voluntarily refunded $262,975 to the government, Mayo agreed to settle with the DOJ for an additional $1 million because we believe the prolonged legal process would have been more costly than the settlement itself, and allows us to best direct our resources to patient care, education and research.
“The original complaint included three allegations: one about the billing error and two about how Mayo Clinic performs tissue pathology. The court dismissed allegations about tissue pathology. The DOJ filed a complaint focused solely on the billing error issue.
“Upon discovering a billing error in 2007, Mayo promptly corrected it and voluntarily refunded $262,975 to the government. We worked with outside accounting experts to ensure this figure represented the complete and appropriate reimbursement amount. The error was identified and corrected long before Mayo became aware that a sealed complaint had been filed and before Mayo was notified that the DOJ was evaluating whether to become involved in the complaint.”
Classic example of DOJ misdirected/abusive use of False Claims Act against providers. As I understand it was going to get blinsided by a sealed complaint with 2 of 3 allegations unfounded/dismissed. Actual billing error was self reported, corrected and reimbursed so why the heavy handed punitive additional million dollar penalty. That’s right; had to find some way to reward the whistleblowers! Bottom line: Mayo and its patients penalized so DOJ can have another “attaboy” moment.
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