The hospital has agreed to pay more than $18.6 million for allegedly claiming excessive cost outlier payments from the Medicare program, according to a Jan. 16 news release from the Justice Department. Certain investors of the hospital will pay $12 million to resolve claims they fraudulently transferred money by the hospital to its investors.
The settlement resolved allegations that the hospital improperly distorted Medicare’s cost outlier payment system, a program to incentivize hospitals to treat unusually expensive inpatients, by rapidly increasing charges beyond what it had the ability to repay. It also resolves allegations it transferred millions of dollars in the hospital’s money to investors without equivalent return.
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