DeWine
COLUMBUS, Ohio (Legal Newsline) - Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine and the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation recently announced a settlement with a Lewis Center durable medical equipment company for alleged improper billing.
Modern Medical Inc., an intermediary between other durable medical equipment companies and injured workers, allegedly billed services and products provided to Ohio injured workers improperly. The company agreed to repay $400,000 to settle the four-year-old case.
"It's unbelievable, and unacceptable, that any firm in business to assist injured workers would turn around and abuse the very system designed to help those workers," Stephen Buehrer, the BWC's administrator and CEO, said.
"Employers pay into the State Insurance Fund to support workers who have been injured on the job, not to direct unearned profits to other businesses."
The BWC alleged that Modern Medical was excessively billing the BWC for durable medical equipment through the Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System, including double billing for durable medical equipment supplies, billing for accessories that were provided at no cost by the manufacturer and unbundling of equipment. In addition, Modern Medical allegedly inflated billing of its home health services by using multiple HCPCS codes to bill for the same service and improperly billed BWC for services related to transporting injured workers.
"This is great news for Ohio's injured workers and the state's employers," DeWine said. "Working with the BWC, we were able to recover funds that can be used the way they were intended, to help those in need."
As part of the agreement, Modern Medical will pay $400,000 and will be required to hire a monitoring company for a three-year period of time to review future billings submitted to managed care organizations. It will also be required to submit audit reports to the BWC.