FLORIDA HOME HEALTH COMPANY TO PAY U.S. OVER $3 MILLION
TO RESOLVE OVER BILLING ALLEGATIONS

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Lifeline Health Care of Southwest Florida, Inc. of Fort Myers, Florida and its parent company will pay the United States more than $3,100,000 to settle allegations that Lifeline over billed Medicare and the military health care programs, TRICARE/CHAMPUS, the Justice Department announced today. The parent company, The Lifeline Health Group, Inc., owns several home health agencies that operate in Florida and Kentucky. Lifeline Health Group is based in Somerset, Kentucky.

As a home health provider under the Medicare program, Lifeline, a home health agency serving patients in Southwest Florida, was to provide services to qualified patients as ordered by the patient's physician. The settlement resolves allegations that from October 1, 1994 through September 30, 1997, Lifeline submitted false or fraudulent claims for Medicare reimbursement for services rendered to patients who did not qualify for home health care and for services that were not medically necessary. The United States further alleged that Lifeline billed Medicare and TRICARE/CHAMPUS for home health visits without the requisite documentation to support the performance and medical necessity of the services billed.

Today's settlement also resolved a lawsuit filed in November 1998 under the qui tam or whistleblower provisions of the False Claims Act by nurses, Doreen Vander Woude, Sharon Judson, Shela Jackson, and Tammy Lanning, who were former employees of Lifeline. The United States intervened in the action and filed its own complaint naming Lifeline and its principal owner, James T. Wilson, as defendants.

The case was handled jointly by the Department's Civil Division and the United States Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Florida, with assistance from the United States Department of Defense, Defense Criminal Investigative Service.

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