Dive Brief:
- Ohio-based Robinson Health System will pay $10 million to resolve claims that it violated the False Claims Act, the Anti-Kickback Statute and the Stark Statute, according to the Department of Justice.
- The suit claims the hospital engaged in illegal financial relationships with referring physicians, including management agreements with two physician groups that allegedly did not provide sufficient management services to justify the payments the hospital made to them.
- Robinson voluntarily disclosed these relationships to the government, according to the release.
Dive Insight:
The compliance issues were "primarily technical in nature," the system said in a statement. The lapses were related to the lease of an office and agreements governing management and technical services to Robinson Memorial Hospital and services coverage to patients, the system said in a statement. None of these contracts were for services provided to patients directly, and neither patients nor any government program was billed for services not rendered, according to Robinson.
"Our intent has always been to comply with the very complex and extremely technical laws governing our relationship with physicians," CEO Stephen Colecchi said. "In hindsight, we should have managed the administration of these contracts more thoroughly to ensure we were fully compliant."