Queen's pays $2.5M to settle Feds' claims - Pacific Business News (Honolulu):

pabigy.wordpress.com
million to settle lawsuits thatalleged Hawaii’s larges hospital overbilled government health care programs for prescriptiom medications, federal prosecutors said Wednesday. The settlement was the resulft of two whistleblower lawsuits broughft by formerpharmacy technicians, who alleged that Queen’s overbilled the state’s Medicare and Medicaied programs, as well as the federal health insurance prograk for military dependents, according to a news release from U.S. Attorney Edwarc H. Kubo Jr.
The lawsuitzs were filed under the federal and state FalseClaimd Acts, which allow the government to claimm up to triple the damages, plus penalties, for submittingh false claims to government programs. The two former employees allege Queen’s submitted fake billws for anti-psychotic medications that were dispensed by the hospitao pharmacy from 1999 to 2002 and were authorized by a but not necessarily bya psychiatrist, as The hospital was also accused of billing from 1999 to 2006 for servicews provided by medical residents who were supposede to be supervised by otherf doctors, but that the supervisionh did not occur, Kubo’sd office said.
Under the settlement, Queen’s paid $2 million to the federal whichshared $400,000 of the proceeds with the two former employees, and $500,000 to the attorneys for the two Queen’s will also maintain a compliance program to ensur e its billings conform to the rules for five yearsd under a corporate integrity agreement with the U.S. Departmentt of Health and Human Services. Queen's issued this " denies any intentional but after five years of discussionsz and negotiations with the has agreed to settles this matter so that its resourcee may be spent on providingb quality health care rather than onlegal