An imaging services provider with centers in Texas, Illinois, and Kansas has agreed to pay the U.S. government $3.5 million to settle charges that it improperly billed Medicare and Medicaid for exams.
Preferred Imaging agreed to the settlement to resolve allegations that it billed for imaging services without proper medical supervision, in violation of the False Claims Act and the Texas Medicaid Fraud Prevention Act. The settlement was announced by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Texas.
U.S. investigators charged that claims were submitted from Preferred Imaging sites for Medicare, Medicaid, and the U.S. military's Tricare healthcare system for procedures performed between 2009 and 2015 without a supervising physician onsite. A former Preferred Imaging employee had filed a whistleblower complaint against the company and will receive $597,000 as part of the settlement.