Vanguard Healthcare, a Brentwood, Tenn.-based nursing home chain, has agreed to pay more than $18 million to resolve false claims allegations, according to the Department of Justice.
Vanguard allegedly billed Medicare and Medicaid for "grossly substandard" services. Five Vanguard facilities failed to provide standard infection control and wound care, used unnecessary physical restraints on residents, and failed to administer medications to residents as prescribed, according to the Justice Department.
"Simply stated, our elderly and vulnerable citizens who can't care for themselves deserve far better treatment than what they were subjected to by Vanguard," Don Cochran, U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, said in a press release. "The substandard care that many of these facilities' residents endured while the companies were raiding the public coffers is deplorable."
The settlement also resolves the government's claims against Vanguard's majority owner and CEO, William Orand, and Vanguard's former director of operations, Mark Miller. They agreed to pay $250,000 as part of the settlement.
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