On February 6, 2019 Greenway Health entered into a settlement with the Department of Justice for $57.25 million related to allegations of violations of the False Claims Act and the Anti-Kickback Statute. The settlement evolved around allegations of misrepresentation of its EHR product and providing remuneration to users to induce them to recommend the product.
Specifically, the government alleges that Greenway received a false certification for its EHR product for meaningful use purposes. Under meaningful use, health care providers would receive incentive payments for use of an EHR and meeting certain requirements. In short, because Greenway allegedly falsified its certification, health care providers utilizing the product were receiving tax funded incentive payments from the government under the meaningful use program.
In addition, the government alleged that Greenway also certified that health care providers were meeting certain EHR criteria for incentive payments. This allegation evolved around calculation of percent of office visits in which a provider would distribute clinical summaries. Health care providers would then falsely attest to meeting such requirements because they may not have been aware the calculations were off. This attestation would result in tax funded incentive payments from the government to the health care provider.
Finally, the government has alleged Greenway was offered remuneration and incentives to client health care providers for recommending their products. While in the non-healthcare setting this might seem appropriate, this alleged practice would certainly impact the Anti-Kickback Statute.
While this settlement resulted in a five-year Corporate Integrity Agreement, electronic health record vendors should be on notice. The Federal government offers billions in incentives under these programs and an adequate compliance program focused on potential abuse will be imperative for every EHR vendor in the future. To read more about the settlement please see the Justice Department’s publication.