NYC Health + Hospitals and a podiatrist agreed to pay $1.25 million to settle allegations that the system's Coney Island Hospital in Brooklyn improperly billed Medicare and Medicaid, according to Bloomberg Law.
The False Claims Act suit against the public hospital system was brought by whistleblower Irina Gelman, DPM, PhD, in 2012. Dr. Gelman is a podiatrist who was formerly a podiatric resident at the Coney Island Hospital.
The suit alleges that the hospital improperly submitted claims for graduate medical education costs related to podiatric residents.
Dr. Gelman also alleged the director of the hospital's podiatric residency program, Glenn Donovan, DPM, failed to properly supervise the podiatry residents, but still billed Medicaid and Medicare as if he was present for the procedure. Dr. Donovan also was accused of falsifying patient records to camoflauge his lack of supervision of the residents, according to Legale.com.
The alleged actions reportedly cost the Medicaid and Medicare programs millions of dollars.
The settlement, which was reported by the plaintiff's attorney Sept. 24, resolves the whistleblower allegations, but denies any wrongdoing, according to the report.