ATLANTA — Medical company American Health Imaging, Inc. and its former founder and CEO Scott Arant will have to pay the State of Georgia, and the federal government, more than $5 million to settle allegations of violating the False Claims Act.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, AHI and Arant were accused of providing doctors with meals, sporting event tickets and other gifts to induce the doctors to refer diagnostic scans to their company and testing facilities, as well as entering into above fair market value personal services agreements with doctors to do so.
“The use of inducements to obtain referrals from medical professionals jeopardizes the integrity of our healthcare programs,” said U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan. “This settlement demonstrates our Office’s commitment to hold accountable providers who ignore Medicare and Medicaid’s strict prohibition against using kickbacks for personal greed.”
Between 2011 and 2019, the U.S. government said AHI relied on inducements such as sporting events, fishing trips, happy hours, sponsoring so-called open houses at doctors’ offices, gifts of alcohol, gas cards and free scans generate referrals for diagnostic scans.
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“Many of AHI’s marketing events involved no discernible educational purpose. Examples include tickets to the SEC football championship game, tickets to concerts, monthly dinners with referral sources, and outings to nail salons,” the USDOJ said. “The government also alleges that AHI entered into personal services agreements with referring physicians that were above fair market value.”
Under the agreements AHI made with doctors, they were compensated to interpret the scans they referred patients to AHI for.
A former AHI employee, Tanya Benjamin, filed a whistleblower complaint with the government about these practices, and was authorized under a provision of the False Claims Act to sue on behalf of the nation, and receive part of the recovery.
“We won’t allow for any provider to take advantage of a system meant to care for our most vulnerable Georgians,” Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr said about the case. “We will continue to protect the interests of Georgia patients and taxpayers by putting a stop to Medicaid fraud and abuse in our state.”
USDOJ said that as the claims were resolved by a civil settlement, there has not been a determination of liability.
Arant and AHI will have to pay $5,250,000 to resolve the allegations.
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