Cigna Defrauded Medicare With False Diagnoses, US Alleges (1)

The US government has joined a whistleblower’s suit alleging that Cigna Corp. and others violated the False Claims Act by submitting false and invalid patient diagnosis information to inflate payments from Medicare.

Cigna knew it was billing Medicare despite relying on home health visit vendors that didn’t perform testing, imaging, or other necessary steps to make diagoses reliable, according to the government’s intervening complaint filed Oct. 14 with the US District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee.

Cigna falsely certified to the government that it provided accurate data because patients didn’t receive any treatment for the purported medical conditions, ...