Strauss Ventures, LLC To Pay $21.3M After Admitting to Nursing Fraud

Strauss Ventures, LLC To Pay $21.3M After Admitting to Nursing Fraud

Due to allegations of medical rehabilitation fraud, Strauss Ventures, LLC, also known as The Grand Health Care System (The Grand), has been forced to pay back $21.3M after failing to provide adequate services. The healthcare firm and its twelve affiliate nursing facilities were found to have violated the False Claims Act by billing healthcare programs for their rehab and therapy services that did not occur as advertised.

Unfortunately, this is just the latest example of rehabilitation services fraud. These companies seem to be willing to break the law if it means obtaining a greater profit. This settlement, forced by the Justice Department, resolves years of suspected fraudulent behavior from The Grand. During this time, Medicare Part A and TRICARE paid for services rendered by The Grand based on a rate of overall minutes of services performed. If you have witnessed fraud as a rehab or therapy worker, reach out to Feldman Legal Group to discuss your legal options.

Case Breakdown

Part of the fraudulent behavior on behalf was in submitting bills that had more minutes of service than was reasonable or necessary or, in other circumstances, did not provide the actual services they billed to the healthcare providers. The Grand admitted that upper management level employees implemented strict and ethically questionable quotas on all 12 of their facilities that they were expected to reach. These quotas included requirements of beneficiaries’ length of stay at their facilities as well as the percentage of clients billed at the highest level of service.  

To meet these questionable quotas, the individual healthcare facilities would often schedule patients to receive therapy even if it wasn’t necessary or helpful to the patient as a means of meeting the quota. To make matters worse, upper-level management from The Grand demanded that no more than three patients per week were released from any of their facilities and no patient on Medicare on Part A could be released without first speaking with corporate management.

The firm also admitted as a part of the settlement that supervisors in these healthcare centers who had no interaction with patients whatsoever set the amount of therapy in minutes a patient would receive to meet the quota. There were even instances where managers would falsify the number of minutes a patient would receive to the insurance companies or encourage those working under them to do so. In some cases, the falsification of the minutes was done well after the patient was discharged.

The Grand, in addition to paying out the settlement charges, will also enter into a 5-year corporate integrity agreement with the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG). The agreement includes daily visits from auditors to ensure that the business is adhering to legal guidelines. The settlement itself was brought to the attention of the legal authorities through a whistleblower lawsuit under qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act. The whistleblower earned over $4 million in damages from the total settlement. 

Contact Feldman Law Group Today

If you have worked for a rehab company, nursing home, or contract therapy provider and witnessed anything which is unlawful now or in the past, you may be eligible for a relator share in a qui tam case. Contact us today to set up a consultation. Our firm has over 20 years of experience fighting for workers’ rights. Our dedicated attorneys have years of experience dealing with qui tams, federal and state false claim acts, and Medicare and Medicaid whistleblower actions. Fill out our contact form to learn more about how we can help you get the compensation you deserve.