North Atlantic Medical Services Inc. (NAMS), doing business as Regional Home Care Inc., paid $852,378 to the United States and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to resolve allegations that it used unlicensed employees to provide respiratory therapy services to patients in Massachusetts and billed Medicare and Medicaid for these services.
NAMS is a medical device company based in Massachusetts that provides equipment and services for the treatment of respiratory ailments, such as oxygen deficiency and sleep apnea. Medicare and Medicaid require suppliers of respiratory therapy equipment and services to comply with state licensing standards. In Massachusetts, the Department of Public Health requires respiratory therapists to apply for and obtain a license.
In their False Claims Act qui tam complaint, the relators, former employees of NAMS, alleged that NAMS knowingly violated Medicare and Medicaid billing requirements for sleep therapy and oxygen services in the home, and as a result, put patients’ health at risk and submitted false or fraudulent bills to the government in violation of the federal and Massachusetts False Claims Acts. They alleged that NAMS continued to use unlicensed personnel and bill Medicare and Medicaid even after the Massachusetts Department of Public Health informed the company that the practice was illegal.