Memphis, Tenn.-based Baptist Memorial Health Care, and its physician group must face a retaliation lawsuit filed by a nurse practitioner who claimed the organization violated the False Claims Act by retaliating against her for raising billing fraud concerns, a Tennessee district court ruled.
Margaret Allgood, who began working as a nurse practitioner at the medical group in 2012, claims that she witnessed several instances of billing fraud, Becker’s reports.
In particular, Ms. Allgood said she observed a nurse practitioner for the Baptist medical group perform a procedure on one of her patients in March 2018, but a few months later saw a procedure note that said a physician, John King, MD, performed the operation. According to the lawsuit, Ms. Allgood also performed an interrogation procedure for another patient and was told it was a standard practice to bill all interrogations under Dr. King’s name. Since Medicare pays more for a physician service than a service performed by a nurse practitioner, Ms. Allgood alleges the medical group received overpayments from false claims. Read more.
