King's Daughters Medical Center in Ashland will pay nearly $41 million to the federal government in a settlement related to its cardiac program.
The agreement follows allegations that the hospital billed federal health care programs for heart procedures performed on patients who didn't need them, WSAZ-TV reported.
“There is a tremendous amount of taxpayer money in federal health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid being spent in the Eastern District of Kentucky," U.S. Attorney Kerry Harvey told WCHS-TV. "Where there are signs that health care providers have obtained taxpayer dollars through fraud or other forms of abuse, it is our responsibility to investigate those allegations and recover those funds to the fullest extent allowed by the evidence and the law.”
In a statement, the hospital said the settlement was not an admission of wrongdoing. King's Daughters "made the difficult decision to settle the investigation, rather than continue to drain valuable resources on government allegations related to old cases," according to the statement.
In March, more than 500 former patients of King's Daughters sued the hospital for allegedly performing cardiac procedures they didn't need.