For Immediate Release:
Monday, April 10, 2023
Contact: Nazneen Ahmed
919-716-0060
(RALEIGH) Attorney General Josh Stein today announced a settlement of more than $226,000 to resolve allegations that MedCare Clinic & Pharmacy, LLC (“MedCare”) in Indian Trail caused the submission of false claims to Medicare and the North Carolina Medicaid program. The funds from this settlement will return taxpayer funds to Medicare and the North Carolina Medicaid program.
“When health care providers cheat the Medicaid and Medicare programs, they’re wasting taxpayer resources that should go toward people’s health care,” said Attorney General Josh Stein. “My office will hold accountable health care providers who commit fraud against taxpayers.”
From Jan. 1, 2016, through Dec. 31, 2019, MedCare allegedly submitted or caused to be submitted reimbursement claims to Medicare and Medicaid for pharmaceutical drug dosages and units that weren’t actually distributed to Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries. Additionally, MedCare also allegedly failed to properly return those drugs to stock when people failed to pick them up.
The federal and North Carolina False Claims Acts authorize the governments to recover triple the money falsely obtained, plus substantial civil penalties for each false claim submitted. It should be noted that the civil claims resolved by settlement here are allegations only, that there has been no judicial determination or admission of liability.
This settlement results from a whistleblower lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina. The United States Department of Justice Civil Division, Commercial Litigation Branch, Fraud Section, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Western District of North Carolina, the Office of Inspector General of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, and the Medicaid Investigations Division of the North Carolina Attorney General’s Office investigated the allegations and participated in the settlement negotiations.
About the Medicaid Investigations Division (MID)
The Attorney General’s MID investigates and prosecutes health care providers that defraud the Medicaid program, patient abuse of Medicaid recipients, patient abuse of any patient in facilities that receive Medicaid funding, and misappropriation of any patients’ private funds in nursing homes that receive Medicaid funding.
To date, the MID has recovered more than $1 billion in restitution and penalties for North Carolina. To report Medicaid fraud or patient abuse in North Carolina, call the MID at 919-881-2320. The MID receives 75 percent of its funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under a grant award totaling $6,106,236 for Federal fiscal year (FY) 2022. The remaining 25 percent, totaling $2,035,412 for FY 2022, is funded by the State of North Carolina.
###