Ambulance service ordered to pay $5.5M in scam

TAMPA — AmeriCare Ambulance Service Inc. and its sister company, AmeriCare ALS Inc., have agreed to pay $5.5 million to resolve allegations the entities defrauded Medicare by billing for medically unnecessary ambulance transportation services.

According to U.S. Attorney Maria Chapa Lopez, the Tampa-based companies — collectively known as AmeriCare — submitted fraudulent claims to Medicare and TriCare over early an eight-year period for basic life support (BLS), non-emergency ambulance transports that were not medically justified.

“Fraudulently billing the government for medically unnecessary ambulance transports poses a heavy drain on the Treasury, deprives federal health care programs of valuable resources, and will not be tolerated,” Lopez states in a press release.

To support the allegations against AmeriCare — which were originally brought by a whistleblower, former AmeriCare employee Ernest Sharp — the government cited information regarding unwarranted ambulance transports it had received from numerous AmeriCare employees, as well as audits conducted by the agencies that administer Medicare and TriCare, the release states. The government also cited damaging testimony it had elicited under oath from members of AmeriCare's management team during the course of the investigation.

According to the release, AmeriCare was proven to have created thousands of false reports and other documentation in a failed effort to support its illicit business practices.

In addition to paying about $5.5 million, AmeriCare has also agreed to enter into an integrity agreement with the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Sharp will receive roughly $1.15 million of the proceeds of the settlement with AmeriCare.