Sound Inpatient Physicians Inc., a Tacoma-based provider of physicians and hospitalists, will pay $14.5 million to settle allegations that it overbilled Medicare and other federal health care programs.
The U.S. Department of Justice said Sound Inpatient Physicians employs more than 700 hospitalists and post-acute physicians, who provide services at 70 hospitals and a network of post-acute facilities in 22 states.
The government alleged that between 2004 and 2012, Sound Physicians submitted to federal health benefits programs inflated claims on behalf of its hospitalist employees for higher and more expensive levels of service than were documented by hospitalists in patient medical records.
The allegations against the company were raised by former Sound Physicians employee Craig Thomas, who will receive $2.7 million of the $14.5 million settlement as part of the federal whistleblower law.
“Fraudulently inflated billing of government health care programs puts those programs at risk, and impacts the system’s ability to care for the neediest in our communities,” said Jenny Durkan, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington, in a statement.