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| Photo: Ericka Burchett/The Wall Street Journal |
CityMD allegedly knowingly submitted payment for Covid-19 testing to the Uninsured Program for individuals who had health insurance coverage when CityMD administered those tests, the DOJ said
CityMD has agreed to pay more than $12 million to the Justice Department for allegedly submitting false claims for payment for Covid-19 testing to the Health Resources and Services Administration governmental program for uninsured patients.
The urgent-care chain’s settlement resolves allegations related to the violation of the False Claims Act, the Justice Department’s Office of Public Affairs said Friday. The act encourages people with knowledge of suspected false claims to sue on the government’s behalf.
“The recent settlement is neither a finding of liability nor an admission of wrongdoing, and CityMD denies the allegations,” a company spokesperson said. “However, we settled this matter to avoid the cost and burden of prolonged litigation.”
CityMD is owned by Walgreens Boots Alliance after the pharmacy operator acquired Summit Health in a transaction worth roughly $9 billion including debt late in 2022. --->READ MORE HERE (or HERE)
A Suffolk judge told a former nurse practitioner who admitted selling more than $1 million in fraudulent vaccine cards during the COVID-19 pandemic that he believed she was motivated by greed as he fined her corporations more than $500,000 beyond what she had expected to pay at sentencing Tuesday.
State Supreme Court Justice John Collins told Julie DeVuono, 52, the former owner of Wild Child Pediatrics in Amityville, that she endangered the lives of “hundreds, if not thousands” of people who relied on her “clients, not patients” to comply with state mandates that required them to become vaccinated to continue to work public sector jobs in New York.
“This case was not a referendum on the necessity of the COVID vaccine or the governmental mandates,” Collins told DeVuono. “This case is about greed. You are not some altruistic heroine, some archangel of the anti-vax people. You are an opportunistic thief who prostituted her medical expertise, and her license to help people, to feather your own nest.”
As part of a plea deal, DeVuono was sentenced to 6 months in jail, but will instead serve 840 hours of community service where she now lives in Pennsylvania. Collins ordered that service did not involve health care or medical practices. DeVuono also paid back $1.2 million in proceeds from the scheme in a criminal forfeiture case the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office filed against her.
The New York State Department of Health revealed Tuesday that violations of public health law were also filed against DeVuono for falsely reporting 226 vaccines administered to 26 pediatric patients.
"Today’s sentencing of Julie DeVuono is an example of the repercussions of vaccine-related fraud," department spokesperson Erin Clary said. "This type of criminal conduct is a threat to public health; in particular, it puts at risk the safety of patients who may be particularly vulnerable and whose wellbeing New York’s public health system exists to protect." --->READ MORE HEREFollow links below to relevant/related stories and resources:
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