Compassionate Care Hospice (CCH) will pay $6.5 million to settle federal charges that it submitted fraudulent Medicare and Medicaid claims for hospice nursing services.

In the settlement, CCH accepted responsibility for failing, at its Bronx location, to treat patients according to an individualized plan of care, failing to meet the needs of certain patients, failing to make nursing services available 24 hours a day and seven days a week as required, and failing to maintain adequate clinical records.

CCH Group accepted responsibility for failing to provide sufficient oversight of CCH-New York through its compliance audits.

CCH-New York will pay $4,992,000 to the United States and $1,680,000 to the State of New York to resolve its liability for this conduct.

CCH entered into a corporate integrity agreement with HHS-OIG, through which it agrees to implement certain institutional compliance measures and submit to monitoring by HHS-OIG for five years.

“In addition to protecting public monies, this settlement agreement protects patients who require hospice care, by holding Compassionate Care Hospice accountable for providing inadequate services and sending a message to all similarly situated providers,” said Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara.

Federal officials alleged that between May 2010 and September 2011, CCH-New York, at its Bronx location, failed to provide hospice nursing services in the manner required by the applicable regulations, including following patients’ plans of care, which typically required a hospice nurse to visit the patient one to three times per week.

The complaint alleges that nurses employed by CCH-New York routinely missed these visits, then, at the direction of management in the Bronx office and with the knowledge of CCH Group, falsified nursing notes in patients’ files in order to make it appear as though the visits had been performed.

CCH billed Medicare and Medicaid for services not actually performed or not performed in compliance with the applicable regulations, and received millions of dollars as a result of the fraudulent claims.