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Ambulance Fraud Attorneys

Medicare pays for different levels of ambulance services, including air transport (fixed-wing and rotary-wing transport).

Nolan Auerbach & White are experienced Healthcare Fraud Attorneys helping courageous whistleblowers.

Medicare pays for different levels of ambulance services, including air transport (fixed-wing and rotary-wing transport). These levels of service are differentiated by the qualifications and training of the crew and the equipment and supplies available on a vehicle that allows for treatment of more complex medical conditions. The rotary wing air ambulance may be necessary because the beneficiary’s condition requires rapid transport to a treatment facility, and either great distances or other obstacles (for example, heavy traffic), preclude such rapid delivery to the nearest appropriate facility by ground ambulance.

Medicare regulations set forth medical necessity and other conditions of payment for any ambulance services. The fundamental medical necessity requirement for ambulance services, including rotary wing (helicopter) ambulance services, is that they are covered “only if they are furnished to a beneficiary whose medical condition is such that other means of transportation are contraindicated.”

In addition to those regulations, CMS has adopted some interpretive rules in the Medicare Carrier Manual (“MCM”). The MCM expressly limits payment for air ambulance service to those instances where “the beneficiary’s medical condition is such that transportation by either basic or advanced life support land ambulance is not appropriate.” Furthermore, the MCM states that payment for air ambulance will be covered by Medicare if “the beneficiary’s medical condition required immediate and rapid ambulance transportation. . . .”

Air ambulance services, as opposed to ambulance services in general, are limited to instances where a patient needs immediate acute-care services at a hospital that is too far away for safe transportation by land. The illustrative list of medical services in the MCM makes it clear that air ambulance services are justified only when the patient needs emergency services that are available solely at a distant destination. The list includes the following:

– Intracranial bleeding – requiring neurosurgical intervention;
– Cardiogenic shock;
– Burns requiring treatment in a Burn Center;
– Conditions requiring treatment in a Hyperbaric Oxygen Unit;
– Multiple severe injuries; or
– Life-threatening trauma.

Providers of ambulance services submit claims for payment to carriers or Medicare contractors. Independent ambulance suppliers bill carriers on CMS Form 1500. Ambulance suppliers are not required to submit additional documentation with Form CMS-1500, but appropriate documentation containing medical necessity and other information must be kept on file and made available for contractor review if requested.

The opportunity to commit Medicare fraud for air ambulance services without detection is great, making it highly vulnerable to abuse. Known methods are:

    1. Billing for services that were not covered because the beneficiary’s condition did not meet coverage requirements or medical appropriateness as the beneficiary did not require immediate and rapid ambulance transportation;
    2. Billing for services that were not covered because the air transport was not to the closest appropriate facility, to the extent air transport was even medically necessary;
    3. Billing for hospital to hospital transport when transportation by ground ambulance would not have endangered the beneficiary’s health and/or the transferring hospital had appropriate facilities/the transferee hospital did not have appropriate facilities;
    4. Medicare kickbacks;
    5. Waiving copayments.

Kathleen Hawkins

Dignity Health
$37 million

Kathleen Hawkins, RN MSN, had been employed by Defendant, Catholic Healthcare West (CHW) for approximately 6 years when she decided she had had enough of trying to change the hospital system from within.

CHW, a California not-for-profit corporation that operated hospitals in California, Arizona, and Nevada, was at the time the eighth largest hospital system in the nation and the largest not-for-profit hospital provider in California.

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Joe Strom

Johnson & Johnson
$184 Million

Joe Strom contacted us in 2005. We were very grateful that he did. We immediately formed an all-star legal team and a process to stop a very harmful pharmaceutical marketing strategy. It was this process we set into motion that ultimately returned hundreds of millions of dollars to the U.S. Treasury, and a portion of that, very well-deserved, into Joe’s bank account.

Joe told us a very troubling story about the off-label promotion of a pharmaceutical drug for patients who already suffered from chronic heart failure.

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Bruce A. Moilan Sr.

$27 Million

Bruce Moilan was a seasoned hospital systems expert by the time he contacted our Firm. At the time he decided to file his qui tam lawsuit, he was employed by South Texas Health System as a System Director for Materials Management. In this position, he oversaw $24 million in annual purchases of supplies and equipment and helped determine budget, reduction and cost analysis throughout the contract bidding and negotiations process. His job was to insure proper implementation for purchasing, receiving and management of inventory, for McAllen Hospitals, L.P.

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