Ashland Physician and Substance Abuse Treatment Center Agree to Pay $1.4 Million to Resolve Civil Claims

An Ashland, KY addiction treatment specialist, Dr. Rose O. Uradu, and her substance abuse treatment center, Ultimate Care Medical Services, LLC d/b/a Ultimate Treatment Center, have agreed to pay $1.4 million to resolve civil allegations that they violated the Controlled Substances Act, and defrauded the Medicare and Kentucky Medicaid programs.

The settlement resolved a civil lawsuit alleging that Ultimate Treatment Center, at the direction of Dr. Uradu, sought and received payments from Medicare and Kentucky Medicaid for services that were not actually provided to patients. According to the Complaint, between January 2013 and September 2014, defendants billed these government programs for “evaluation and management” services, purportedly provided to patients who visited the clinic to receive daily methadone doses. The United States alleged that Ultimate Treatment Center did not actually perform these services when patients received their methadone doses, but falsely documented the performance of these services, in the patients’ medical records, in order to create the false appearance that the reimbursement was justified.

The United States further alleged that, during the period July 2013 and December 2014, defendants billed Medicare and Kentucky Medicaid for complex urine testing that the clinic’s equipment was incapable of performing, therefore violating the False Claims Act.

In addition to false claims, the United States alleged that Dr. Uradu issued buprenorphine prescriptions to more patients than permitted by law for a three-month period in 2014 (maximum 100 patients). According to the settlement agreement, it is alleged that Dr. Uradu violated the Controlled Substances Act each time she wrote a prescription over her limit.

Should you have any questions or concerns regarding the legalities of controlled substance prescribing or dispensing in Michigan, please contact Robert S. Iwrey, Esq. at 248-996-8510 or riwrey@thehlp.com any time but preferably prior to Federal and/or State government agencies contacting you regarding possible non-compliance/violations of the law.