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Health firm that donated big to Biden, Dems pays $90 million for allegedly bilking Medicare – Just The News, 2021/08/31
A California health care firm whose executives and employees donated big to Joe Biden and other Democrats has agreed to pay a $90 million civil penalty to settle allegations it bilked Medicare by filing paperwork to make patients look sicker than they were.
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Sutter Health, headquartered in Sacramento, Calif., agreed to pay the fine and enter into a corporate integrity monitoring agreement with the government for five years to resolve allegations it violated the False Claims Act by knowingly submitting inaccurate diagnosis codes for Medicare Advantage patients, the Justice Department announced Tuesday.
DOJ alleged that Sutter Health “knowingly submitted unsupported diagnosis codes for certain patient encounters” that “caused inflated payments to be made to the plans and to Sutter Health,” and it then failed to take corrective action after being alerted to the problems.
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Sutter’s practices were well known inside the Biden team, in part because current Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra pursued the company when he was California attorney general, obtaining a 2019 settlement agreement requiring the company to pay $575 million in compensation for anticompetitive practices.
Despite the cloud of allegations lingering over it, Sutter Health found a welcoming home among Democrats seeking donations in the last election.
Executives and employees of Sutter health ramped up giving to federal candidates in the 2020 election to more than $932,000, nearly five times more than what they donated in the prior presidential election in 2016. Democrats received the lion’s share of the donations — more than $800,000 in 2020 — with President Biden’s campaign being the largest recipient with more than $233,000, according to Federal Election Commission records gathered by the Center for Responsive Politics.
In the end, no liability for defrauding the government and taxpayers. And $90 million is probably a small slap on the wrist for them.
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