Anesthesiologist’s Medicare Fraud Suit Revived by 7th Circuit

A Wisconsin anesthesiologist will have another chance to allege Anesthetix Management LLC and its owner TeamHealth Holdings Inc. violated the False Claims Act by submitting inflated bills to Medicare and Medicaid for anesthesiology services, the Seventh Circuit ruled Wednesday.

John Mamalakis’ complaint contained ten specific examples of the defendants allegedly billing the government using a code for “medically directed” services when the services only qualified for payment at the lower “medically supervised” services rate, Chief Judge Diane S. Sykes said for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

The examples satisfied federal pleading standards by showing when an ...