Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas and physicians from Dallas-based UT Southwestern Medical Center are facing a whistleblower lawsuit alleging Medicare and Medicaid fraud, according to a Dallas Morning News report.
The suit was filed in 2010 by Lien Kyri, MD, a former UT Southwestern resident who trained at Parkland, but the suit was unsealed yesterday. It alleges Parkland and UT physicians falsely submitted "hundreds of thousands" of claims for rehabilitation consultations that were never requested by patients' primary care physicians, thus rendering them non-reimbursable.
The suit also claims the rehab unit's medical director at Parkland is "committed and focused" on UT Southwestern, does not dedicate enough time to Parkland and leaves the rehab unit functioning without proper oversight.
Dallas County is also named as a defendant in the suit. UT Southwestern is not named as a defendant, though its faculty make up a significant portion of Parkland's medical staff. Five current or former members of UT Southwestern's physical medicine and rehab department are named in the suit.
Parkland released the following statement in response to the suit, according to the news report: "Parkland will respond to the complaint in the appropriate manner. Beyond that, we will have no comment on this pending litigation."
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The suit was filed in 2010 by Lien Kyri, MD, a former UT Southwestern resident who trained at Parkland, but the suit was unsealed yesterday. It alleges Parkland and UT physicians falsely submitted "hundreds of thousands" of claims for rehabilitation consultations that were never requested by patients' primary care physicians, thus rendering them non-reimbursable.
The suit also claims the rehab unit's medical director at Parkland is "committed and focused" on UT Southwestern, does not dedicate enough time to Parkland and leaves the rehab unit functioning without proper oversight.
Dallas County is also named as a defendant in the suit. UT Southwestern is not named as a defendant, though its faculty make up a significant portion of Parkland's medical staff. Five current or former members of UT Southwestern's physical medicine and rehab department are named in the suit.
Parkland released the following statement in response to the suit, according to the news report: "Parkland will respond to the complaint in the appropriate manner. Beyond that, we will have no comment on this pending litigation."
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