A nonprofit New York research institute will pay $3.75 million after admitting it falsified data in a federally funded study to assess how often state officials made mistakes in Medicaid eligibility cases.
The Research Foundation, which serves the State University of New York, received a $3.1 million federal grant from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid for the study, but things went awry when whistleblowers talked to federal officials about what was going on behind closed doors.
To inflate New York’s efficiency, the foundation admitted that it prescreened and altered cases prior to their submission to the government under the study. That’s a violation of the federal False Claims Act.
The foundation thus “failed to fulfill its contractual obligation as a federal grant recipient to deliver the accurate and reliable information necessary to maintain the integrity of the Medicaid program,” said U.S. Attorney Richard S. Hartunian in a statement made public Tuesday.
Civil action by five whistleblowers prompted the federal investigation that led to the settlement. Under the False Claims Act, whistleblowers may file lawsuits on behalf of the federal government and receive a portion of the amount recovered.
The whistleblowers could receive as much as 22 percent of the recovery amount, but Hartunian did not provide a specific amount.
