Lourdes to pay $8M in Medicare fraud case

Our Lady of Lourdes Health Care Services Inc. of Camden has agreed to pay $7.95 million to settle civil Medicare fraud allegations involving two of its hospitals, the U.S. Department of Justice said.

The hospitals are Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center in Camden and Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center of Burlington County in Willingboro.

The case stemmed from a whistle-blower lawsuit brought in 2005 by Tony Kite, a private health care consultant, and alleging inflated hospital charges for Medicare patients to obtain enhanced government reimbursements.

In addition to standard payments, Medicare provides supplemental reimbursement where the cost of care is unusually high. The lawsuit claimed Lourdes raised its charges for cases that were not extraordinarily costly to receive the higher payments, the government said.

Under the settlement, which resolves the lawsuit, Kite will receive $356,000 plus interest.

Lourdes Health Care is part of the Catholic Health East system, based in Newtown Square.    - Paul Schweizer