By Teresa Auch Schultz
Post-Tribune
CROWN POINT, Ind. — The federal government has seized almost $2 million from the bank accounts of a Crown Point ambulance company accused of defrauding Medicare.
According to a complaint filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court in Hammond, the government seized $1.97 million in November from various bank accounts owned by Northwest Ambulance Service. A representative with NAS could not be reached for comment.
No criminal charges against NAS appear in court records.
The lawsuit argues that NAS, which mostly provides transport for dialysis patients, fraudulently billed Medicare for these rides as ambulance rides. Medicare pays more for ambulance rides vs. rides in a wheelchair van. Ambulance rides are supposed to only be for patients who cannot walk and cannot sit up on their own in a wheelchair, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit says that 89 percent of the claims by NAS to Medicare were for transporting dialysis patients, and that 80 percent of these claims were for patients who didn’t need an ambulance.
It adds that NAS’ owner, Basil Ubanwa, and others told employees to fill out forms submitted to Medicare using certain language to support the use of an ambulance.
From 2009 to last year, NAS submitted ambulance claims to Medicare totalling $18.7 million and has been paid $7.7 million. It was unclear how much of this is thought to be connected to fraud.
The complaint asks that the money seized from NAS’ bank accounts be turned over to federal government.
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