Personal Injury Law

Charges settled in kickback case involving SavaSeniorCare/Mariner and Omnicare, Inc.

By Beth Janicek

The U.S. Department of Justice reached a $14 million settlement with the nursing home chains Mariner Health Care Inc. and SavaSeniorCare Administrative Services LLC over the alleged kickbacks from Omnicare. The defendants conspired to have Omnicare pay $50 million in exchange for using the supplier for 15 years, and it also involved Omnicare's paying $40 million to buy a Mariner unit.

Omnicare Inc., a provider of geriatric pharmaceutical-services, will pay $98 million to settle charges from the alleged kickback scheme with drug makers and nursing homes. The Department of Justice claims that Omnicare regularly paid kickbacks to nursing homes so they will refer their patients to Omnicare for their pharmacy services. In addition, they solicited and received kickbacks from Johnson & Johnson in exchange for recommending that doctors prescribe Johnson & Johnson's drug Risperdal. The Department says that Omnicare's actions have caused false claims to be submitted to Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal health-care programs.

Atlanta based Mariner Health Care, a subsidiary of SavaSeniorCare, has had a record of poor care in several states. In the past state inspections have revealed substandard facilities and severe under-staffing, which resulted in serious deficiencies in care. In order to keep costs down, they purposely restricted advertising for new staff. There have been ongoing reports of poor care in its nursing homes since it traded out of bankruptcy in May 2002. In addition, Mariner is one of several nursing homes that have been investigated for Medicare fraud.

Full post as published by San Antonio Personal Injury Lawyer on March 04, 2010 (boomark / email).