Corporate Whistleblower Center Aims to Identify Nursing Home Employees Who Can Serve as Whistleblowers

The Corporate Whistleblower Center recently launched an ambitious new initiative designed to help nursing home and skilled nursing facility employees received rewards for providing information proving their employer is billing Medicare for services not rendered or hours never worked.

The organization believes nursing homes and/or skilled nursing facilities that bill Medicare for hours not worked is a significant national problem, and that these practices are also relatively easy to prove. The practice is commonly referred to as “short staffing.”

In one recent example, the U.S. Department of Justice announced a national healthcare company that specializes in long term care agreed to pay the federal government $53 million to settle allegations that the company and/or its affiliates violated the False Claims Act by submitting false claims regarding medically unnecessary care and hospital services.

The settlement resolved allegations that the company violated some essential requirements that nursing homes must meet to participate in and be reimbursed by government healthcare programs, and did not provide enough nursing staffing to meet residents’ needs.

The whistleblowers in this case will receive reward worth multiple millions of dollars for providing this information, and the Corporate Whistleblower Center hopes to see more awards like this arise.

Reporting wrongdoing to the government

There are numerous protections in place for whistleblowers who provide the federal government with valuable information on wrongdoing within their agencies or companies. To learn more about how to proceed with a whistleblower claim of your own, contact a skilled Dallas lawyer at Whistleblower Law for Managers.