As part of a settlement agreement reached on August 23, three hospitals and their former parent system agreed to pay $2.95 million to resolve state and federal False Claims Act (FCA) allegations that they failed to investigate and repay overpayments from the New York Medicaid program in a timely manner under the so-called “60 Day Rule.” The allegations were originally made by a former employee via a 2011 qui tam suit, United States of America ex rel. Kane v. Continuum Health Partners, Inc.

Under the 60 Day Rule, enacted as part of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, providers are required to report and return overpayments within 60 days of identification. When “identification” happens has been the subject of much debate, and was one of the main issues in the decision issued by the US District Court in the Southern District of New York last year, which denied Continuum’s motion to dismiss the government’s complaint. Despite repaying all of the improper claims, the government alleged in Kane that Continuum and the hospitals “fraudulently delay[ed] repayments” for up to two years after it had identified them. As has become the custom in the Southern District of New York, the settlement agreement contains certain admissions by Continuum concerning the covered conduct, including that beginning in 2009, a software compatibility issue caused them to mistakenly submit improper claims to the New York Medicaid program, the billing errors were brought to their attention over the course of late 2010 and early 2011, and that Continuum began to reimburse Medicaid for the 444 improper claims in February 2011 and concluded repayment in March 2013.

While Kane was the first court to directly grapple with the issue of when a provider had “identified” an overpayment, the Kane court’s interpretation of “identify” has been essentially supplanted by the final rule released by Medicare in February 2016. The final rule makes clear that a provider can conduct “reasonable diligence” into whether it has received an overpayment and can quantify the amount of such overpayment without triggering the 60-day clock. Even with the final rule, there continue to be significant questions about what constitutes “reasonable diligence” and how the rule intersects with the FCA’s reverse false claims cause of action, which only is triggered by knowingly concealing or knowingly and improperly avoiding or decreasing an overpayment retained in violation of the rule.

The Kane case and settlement confirm the interest of the government and relators in examining overpayment and 60 Day Rule issues under the FCA. The potential ramifications can be significant — the settlement amount is more than triple the $844,000 in overpayments Continuum originally received from (and repaid to) Medicaid. It may be advisable for providers to review their policies and procedures for addressing and resolving potential overpayment issues and maintaining documentation of those efforts to defend their actions if questioned by the government.