Medicaid fraud investigators filed a civil suit against New York City government this past Tuesday, January 11, 2011. The suit claims that city officials green-lighted round the clock in-home care for thousands of elderly New Yorkers, many of whom were in need of nursing home care. In normal cases, to justify twenty-four hour care, recommendations are required from a patient’s doctors and nurses. The suit alleges that in many of the cases in question, this step was overlooked or ignored by the city.
Due to the increased cost for twenty-four hour, in-home care, Medicaid claims that these patients accrued additional costs of millions of dollars, unnecessary spending in its opinion. It will be up to a federal court to decide whether this alleged mishandling of patient appropriation indeed amounts to fraud, or if The City was in fact in the right by approving the in-home care.
Website Resource: As New York City Defends Medicaid Approvals, Fear of Suit’s Fallout Grows New York Times, Anemona Hartocollis, January 12, 2011
