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  Government Action: BBB reports on known government actions involving business’ marketplace conduct:

  Watertown Medical Practice to Pay $850,000 to Resolve False Claims Act Allegations
  

  The following describes a government action that has been resolved by either a settlement or a decision by a court or administrative agency. If the matter is being appealed, it will be noted below.

  
  

  August 3, 2022, ALBANY, NEW YORK – North Country Neurology, P.C., a physician-owned medical practice located in Watertown, New York, has agreed to pay $850,000 for what it admitted was “improper” and “reckless” billing to the federal government for medical services, announced United States Attorney Carla B. Freedman.

  
  

  North Country Neurology admitted that, on 120 occasions from September 2015 through June 2019, it “submitted or caused to be submitted claims for payment to Medicare that improperly listed a physician as the rendering provider for services rendered by a physician assistant when no physician was physically present in the office and immediately available to furnish assistance and direction throughout the performance of the procedure.”  The practice further admitted that it “knew or should have known the requirements of incident-to billing and that it was improper to submit claims to Medicare in a physician’s name for services rendered by an NPP when no physician was in the office” because, among other reasons, its billing company had informed the practice’s owner of separate incident-to billing violations several years earlier.
  
  
  
  North Country Neurology also improperly billed Medicare for the drug Botox, even though the same Botox had already been paid for by other insurers.  From March 2015 through February 2021, North Country Neurology purchased Botox for its Medicare patients, while its other patients purchased Botox at a specialty pharmacy and had it shipped to the practice.  The practice admitted that on approximately 761 occasions during this period, its providers administered and the practice billed Medicare for Botox that was paid for by another insurer. For more details go to the Department of Justice's press release.

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