By John S. Hausman
MLive
MUSKEGON COUNTY, Mich. — The federal government’s Medicare and Medicaid oversight office believes the White Lake Ambulance Authority submitted hundreds of insurance claims the authority “knew or should have known were false or fraudulent,” according to a government lawyer’s letter.
More than $120,000 might have been wrongfully paid to White Lake over more than five years, according to the Sept. 22 letter to the ambulance authority from the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The OIG believes White Lake submitted such emergency ambulance claims using “origin-destination modifiers” where the true destination was not a hospital, according to counsel Nicole Caucci’s letter. The true destinations are believed to have included skilled nursing facilities and dialysis facilities, among other non-emergency sites, Caucci wrote.
Read full story: White Lake Ambulance Authority billed $120K in false claims, feds believe