August 10, 2005
Mount Vernon Hospital, of Westchester County, New York, will pay $2.65 million to settle charges that it participated in an illegal Medicaid referral scheme involving kickbacks for patients who sought substance abuse services.
The suit, originally brought by a whistle-blower, charged that the hospital paid a consulting company, Applied CaseManagement Inc., $60,000 a month for patient referrals, something that violates state and federal laws. The payments were allegedly mischaracterized as administrative services. The suit also claimed that the hospital was not certified to provide inpatient alcoholism services, making any claims to Medicaid for those services false.
The Journal News ran a story on the settlement on August 2, 2005.