A lawsuit alleging that Mercy Hospital in Portland and its billing companies collected millions of dollar from Medicare through a number of fraudulent billing schemes, such as double billing, can move forward now that a federal judge has refused to dismiss most of the counts in the suit.
The complaint was filed in April 2014 by Jennifer Worthy, Mercy’s former patient accounts manager, who also claims in the suit that she was the victim of retaliation because of her efforts to the stop the unlawful billing practices.
“The complaint alleges 10 different schemes, which Ms. Worthy says she observed, and again I want to emphasize that those are allegations based on her observations. They still remain to be proven,” says Attorney Jeffrey Young, who is representing Worthy. “She has, in essence, risked her career to protect the taxpayers, you and me, from what she observed to be unlawful billing of the government.”
Mercy’s parent company, Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems, which is also a defendant in the case, released a statement this afternoon saying it disputes Worthy’s claims and plans to vigorously defend itself.
EMHS says both the U.S. attorney in Maine and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ inspector general investigated Worthy’s claims and declined to intervene.
