Milwaukee mental clinic scammed Medicaid, feds say
A Milwaukee clinic turned urine samples into liquid gold, cheating Medicaid out of millions of dollars by billing for duplicative and unnecessary drug screening tests, federal prosecutors say.
In fact, from 2011 to 2015, Acacia Mental Health Clinic LLC, 5228 W. Fond du Lac Ave., captured 99% of all Medicaid payments to mental health and substance abuse counseling providers in Wisconsin, according to a new government lawsuit that aims to claw back some of the money.
The U.S. Attorney's office sued Acacia and its owner, Abe Freund, under the federal False Claims Act, which provides recovery from fraudulent government contractors. The suit says Acacia took advantage of poor, undereducated and vulnerable residents suffering from mental health and substance abuse problems to bilk Medicaid.
The case highlights a local aspect of a national problem that grew alongside the opioid epidemic. At drug abuse treatment centers, operators increasingly turned to questionable urine screens as a revenue source. One of the nation's largest labs, San Diego, Calif.-based Millennium, last year agreed to pay $256 million under the False Claims Act to resolve claims that included drug screen fraud.
Read more: http://www.jsonline.com/story/news/blogs/proof-and-hearsay/2017/01/02/milwaukee-mental-clinic-scammed-medicaid-feds-say/95967078/
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