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With a rapidly aging population, total revenue for home health care companies in the United States is expected to exceed $100 billion this year. Much of that money comes through the Medicare system, which reimburses home health and hospice providers when individual beneficiaries qualify for that type of assistance. Though most of the claims are legitimate, there are unscrupulous operators who try to find the gaps that inevitably exist in the government’s supervision and enforcement process.

One example of fraud involves Intrepid U.S.A. Inc., which is headquartered in Dallas and includes numerous wholly-owned subsidiaries. In a case covering activity from a five-year period, federal authorities alleged that Intrepid fraudulently filed claims in cases where the services they provided were unnecessary, delivered by unqualified personnel or not performed at all. As a result, Intrepid agreed to pay $3.85 million to resolve the case against them. 

It wasn’t just the government that got paid, though. This settlement resulted from qui tam lawsuits filed pursuant to the federal False Claims Act by four former Intrepid employees. In the first action, former travel nurse Jennifer Jones and former Director of Quality Assessment Performance Improvement Pamela Joffe acted as plaintiffs on the government’s behalf. Referred to as “relators” in legal parlance, this meant that they were able to collect a percentage of what was paid by Intrepid to close the matters. The second claim was brought by Marsha Rigney, who worked as Director of Clinical Excellence and Integrity ex-Regional Manager of Clinical Excellence Janet Watts.

By taking the initiative to hold their former employer accountable, each of the four women will receive a six-figure payment as their percentage of the total settlement. Jones and Joffe will split approximately $334,000, while about $359,000 will be divided between Rigney and Watts. 

Nearly every American will rely on Medicare at one point or another, and fraudulent claims such as the ones submitted by Intrepid prevent the system from working as well as it should. Taxpayer money should not be wasted on unnecessary home health or hospice services. Blowing the whistle on this type of misconduct can be its own reward, but the payments made to the Intrepid relators prove that doing the right thing can also have tangible benefits. 

Kardell Law Group represents plaintiffs in qui tam cases stemming from various types of fraud committed against the government. Please contact us if you believe your employer is improperly billing for unnecessary or unperformed services.