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February 08, 2012 at 08:51 AM
NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. Department of Justice said Tuesday that a group of 14 hospitals will pay more than $12 million to settle allegations that they converted some outpatient spinal surgeries into more expensive inpatient procedures so they could get bigger payments from Medicare.
The Justice Department said the hospitals overcharged Medicare for kyphoplasties, a procedure used to treat certain kinds of spinal fractures usually caused by osteoporosis. Kyphoplasties can often be performed as outpatient procedures, but the Justice Department says the hospitals involved in the settlement kept patients in the hospital for extra time so they could get larger payments from Medicare.
The settlement payments will end the government’s investigation, officials said.
The surgeries were performed between 2000 and 2008.
In 2008 the Justice Department agreed to a $75 million Medicare billing settlement with Medtronic Inc.’s spine business. The government was investigating allegations that Kyphon, a company that had been acquired by Medtronic Spine in 2007, advised hospitals to do inpatient kyphoplasties to bulk up their Medicare payments even though the procedures could have often been done on an outpatient basis.
The 14 hospitals in the latest settlement are in New York, Mississippi, North Carolina, Washington, Indiana, Missouri, and Florida.
