Law Firm Pays Over $90,000 to Settle A Failure to Reimburse Medicare Claim Brought by U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland

Once again, a law firm was alleged to have failed to properly reimburse Medicare for conditional payments made by Medicare for injuries that were compensated in at least one settlement on behalf of an injured client. The press release, which can be found here involves a fact pattern a little different from a few other recent recovery actions by the U.S. Government related to alleged MSP violations. Often attorneys will refer liability cases to other attorneys or firms that handle personal injury, premises liability, and medical malpractice claims. The attorney that refers the case is typically allowed to share in the attorney’s fees obtained upon successful resolution. The fees obtained by the referring lawyer/firm are supposed to approximate and reflect a reasonable amount for the amount of work they do. Some attorneys do a thorough intake procedure and maintain contact with the client throughout the representation, are copied on all correspondence, and may provide input on strategy and procedure. After all, they have a responsibility to the injured party that originally contacted them in the first place. This matter involved six cases the U.S. Attorney’s office was investigating and of the six, four had been referred by the investigated firm to co-counsel. The firm was held responsible for the alleged failures to reimburse Medicare, regardless of whether they were a referring firm for a case handled by another firm or whether they were the handling the claim from start to finish.

We have provided other instances over the past few years where settlements were made with the Department of Justice including here and here.

However, Plaintiff attorneys in particular should be on high alert because the most recent enforcement actions have been focused on attorneys that disbursed funds to their clients after case finalization but failed to ensure that Medicare’s conditional payments were paid or otherwise resolved.

Take Aways:

• Because the MSP grants both a direct lien right and a subrogation right to the U.S. to collect Medicare’s conditional payments, parties to a settlement should inquire, evaluate and confirm all injury-related Medicare expenditures for past medicals at the time of settlement.
• Even if you “only” refer an injury case to another attorney who may do a majority of the work on the case, you should take an interest in verifying the existence of any liens that need to be addressed.
• Due diligence is required for both the defense and plaintiff side to avoid unnecessary MSP legal exposure.
• In addition to checking and verifying the correct demand amounts from CMS contractors, prior to settlement, steps should be taken by all parties to expand lien search inquiries beyond traditional Medicare (and Medicaid) to determine whether a Medicare Advantage Plan/Organization (MAP/MAO) or Prescription Drug Plan (PDP) made any conditional payments that could be recovered under the MSP. This is because the MSP private cause of action provision has been held in at least two federal circuits to apply to MAO’s and would likely be held to apply to PDP’s too.
• There is value in evaluating Conditional Payment Summary forms that accompany the conditional payment correspondence from Medicare to confirm all entries on the form are injury-related and/or determine whether some entries should be disputed.
• During the lien investigation process, parties should analyze whether a compromise (reduction) of a lien or potentially a waiver may be appropriate.

It is crucial for prospective settling parties to investigate conditional payment reimbursement amounts or work with an entity familiar with lien investigation procedures.
Medivest provides lien resolution services to help parties satisfactorily negotiate outstanding public and private health care matters including Medicare liens, Medicaid liens, Veterans Administration/TriCare liens, hospital liens, and doctors’ bills. Our lien resolution team works hard to dispute non-claim related bills, resolve and reduce outstanding bills/liens, and will seek refunds for amounts already paid when appropriate. Please reach out to discuss lien resolution today.