Nonprofit Health Care Entities Agree to Settle Allegations of Improper Mental Health Services Billing
- June 28, 2024
Visiting Nurse Service Of New York D/B/A VNS Health, Visiting Nurse Service Of New York Home Care II D/B/A Visiting Nurse Service Of New York Home Care, And VNS Health Behavioral Health, Inc. agreed to pay $954,416.48 to resolve allegations of billing Medicaid for services that it failed to provide or failed to document to persons with serious mental illness, Damian Williams, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced June 26.
VNS, which operates one of the largest nonprofit home and community-based health care organizations in the United States, is licensed by the New York State Office of Mental Health to serve as an Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) Program provider.
The settlement resolves claims that VNS submitted or caused to be submitted false claims to Medicaid for monthly payments for 103 patients at the VNS Far Rockaway ACT Program who did not receive the full array of services that VNS was required to provide under the ACT Program or for whom VNS did not adequately or timely document provision of such services in accordance with applicable regulations or the ACT guidelines.