PITTSBURGH, Pa. – The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center has paid $2.5 million to settle some claims in a federal whistleblower lawsuit accusing the hospital network of overbilling government insurance programs for neurosurgery.
UPMC isn’t acknowledging wrongdoing in the settlement announced Wednesday by the federal attorneys. UPMC says it discovered the billing discrepancies and disclosed the errors to the feds and has improved its billing procedures.
The federal government sued last year after two doctors and another whistleblower sued in 2012 alleging various kinds of inflated billing. Some of the whistleblower claims remain and will be pursued privately.
The government lawsuit claimed UPMC “created a culture where money — not medicine — drove the decision-making process” and says UPMC didn’t learn its lesson after paying $17 million to settle similar claims in 1998.
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This story has been corrected to state that the settlement was $2.5 million, not $25 million.
