False Claims Act Success – Attorney Christopher Copeland’s suit on behalf of US Government results in recovery of 2.5 Million dollars from Treasure Coast Hospice in Settlement regarding Claims of Medicare Fraud

Treasure Coast Hospice, a nonprofit owned by parent company Treasure Health, settled a case for $2.5 million in November of 2017, without admission of liability.

“In a routine review of patient records in 2014, the government asserted that Treasure Coast Hospice did not provide sufficient documentation for the care that was delivered to certain patients during the period from 2005 to 2011,” Scott Roads, Treasure Health Board of Directors chairman, said in a recent email to TCPalm.

The financial settlement does not reflect the extent of the nonprofit’s wrongdoing, according to Christopher Copeland, a Jupiter attorney who represents the whistleblowers, former Treasure Health employees Dr. Lewis Cook and Dr. John Simons.

“The damages the government was able to identify far exceeded their ability to pay,” Copeland told TCPalm on Thursday. “The desire was not to shut hospice down, but to allow them to continue to provide services.”