NextGen to Pay $31M Settlement for False Claims Act Allegations
2 min read
What You Ought to Know:
- EHR vendor NextGen Healthcare has agreed to pay $31M to settle allegations that NextGen violated the False Claims Act (FCA) by misrepresenting the capabilities of sure variations of its EHR software program and offering illegal remuneration to its customers to induce them to suggest NextGen’s software program.
- The civil settlement contains the decision of claims introduced beneath the qui tam or whistleblower provisions of the False Claims Act by Toby Markowitz and Elizabeth Ringold, well being care professionals at a facility that used NextGen’s software program.
- The whistleblowers on this case will obtain $5.58M.
FCA Allegations
The allegations contends that NextGen falsely obtained certification for its software program in reference to the 2014 Version certification standards revealed by HHS’s Workplace of the Nationwide Coordinator. The federal government alleges that NextGen relied on an auxiliary product designed solely to carry out the certification take a look at scripts, which hid from the certifying entity that NextGen’s EHR lacked essential performance. The federal government alleges that, consequently, the EHR that NextGen in the end launched to its customers lacked sure required functionalities, together with the power to file very important signal knowledge, translate knowledge into required medical vocabularies, and create full scientific summaries.
Anti-Kickback Statute Violation
As well as, the federal government additionally alleges that NextGen violated the Anti-Kickback Statute, which prohibits anybody from providing or paying, instantly or not directly, any remuneration to induce referrals of things or companies coated by Medicare, Medicaid, and different federally funded applications. In its criticism, the federal government contends that, however this prohibition, NextGen knowingly gave credit, typically price as a lot as $10,000, to present prospects whose advice of NextGen’s EHR software program led to a brand new sale. The federal government alleges that different remuneration, together with tickets to sporting occasions and leisure, was additionally supplied to induce purchases and referrals.
“Digital well being data play a pivotal function within the provision of protected, efficient well being care, and the testing and certification means of the EHR Incentive Program was meant to offer assurances to suppliers that their EHR can carry out sure essential capabilities,” stated U.S. Lawyer Nikolas P. Kerest for the District of Vermont. “With this settlement, our workplace has now resolved 5 investigations into misconduct by EHR corporations, demonstrating our dedication to making sure that EHR corporations are held liable for their misrepresentations.”
