Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital Hamilton, 1 Hamilton Health Place, Hamilton 08619; 609-586-7900; fax, 609-584-6525. Anthony J. Cimino, president and CEO. Home page: www.rwjhamilton.org.
RWJ University Hospital in Hamilton has agreed to pay $6.35 million to settle allegations that it reported inflated charges to Medicare in order to get higher payments from Medicare, according to the federal Department of Justice Department.
The allegations, brought to court by a trio of whistleblowers alleges that the hospital made several false claims between 1998 and 2001 in hopes of benefiting from Medicare’s outlier program. The outlier program is designed to compensate hospitals for unusually costly treatment, and has led to several cases of abuse, the DOJ said.
The hospotal’s CEO, Anthony Cimino, who was not connected to the hospital during the time of the alleged false claims, said in a statement that RWJ “expressly denies any wrongdoing or admission of the government’s claims.”
Three whistle-blowers will share $1.1 million from the settlement.
