Officials at the state's University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) continue to struggle with the fallout from a massive corruption scandal. This week, a federal monitor concluded that the school ad billed Medicare and Medicaid almost $36 million and paid $5.7 million in illegal fees to physicians since 2002, stating that illegal activity continues "to this day." Monitor Herbert J. Stern found that the school had given several cardiologists no-show teaching jobs at a not-so-invisible $150,000 per year in exchange for referring their patients to the facility. Last December, the school faced charges that it had double-billed Medicaid [1] for about $5 million worth of procedures, and to resolve them, agreed to submit to monitoring [2]. More recently, UMDNJ paid $2.2 million to settle a whistleblower suit, but the monitor found that the school had neither gotten proper authorization for the payout nor reported it to the government.
Get more information on the controversy:
- read this Associated Press article [3]
Related Article:
UMDNJ rocked by fraud charges. Report [4]
UMDNJ adopts rules on no-bid contracts. Report [5]
RI hospital exec found guilty of conspiracy, fraud. Report [6]
Links:
[1] http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/umdnj-over-billed-medicaid-by-millions/2005-07-06
[2] http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/umdnj-federal-accounting-oversight/2005-12-22
[3] http://www.forbes.com/business/services/feeds/ap/2006/11/13/ap3170590.html
[4] http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/umdnj-rocked-by-fraud-charges/2006-03-09
[5] http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/umdnj-adopts-rules-on-no-bid-contracts/2005-05-26
[6] http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/ri-hospital-exec-guilty-of-conspiracy-fraud/2006-10-16