NEW YORK – The US Department of Justice said last week that laboratory firm American Health Associates (AHA) has agreed to pay $142,718 to resolve allegations under the federal False Claims Act.
The government alleged that AHA "knowingly caused the submission of false claims" to Medicare for labs test.
According to DOJ, between January 2015 and December 2019, Cincinnati-based AHA submitted false claims for lab tests that had been done during patient stays at Access Hospital Dayton and that had been covered by the inpatient admission.
The agreement follows an earlier settlement between the federal government and Access Hospital Dayton and brings the total money recovered by the government to $517,498. The DOJ noted that the False Claims Act allows the government to recover as much as three times the amount of damages and that the AHA and Access Hospital Dayton settlements were "consistent with the multiple damages recovery allowable."