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Kansas Chiropractic Firm Accused Of Improperly Billing Medicare

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services/Wikimedia Commons

Federal investigators say nearly all of the Medicare payments made to a Lawrence-based chiropractic group should not have been allowed. Heartland Health Monitor’s Bryan Thompson has details.

Medicare paid Lawrence-based Advance Chiropractic Services almost $765,000 for treatments in 2011 and 2012. An audit by the Department of Health and Human Services says almost none of those claims were legally allowable.

ACS collected Medicare payments for treatments to more than 22,000 Medicare beneficiaries in 2011 and 2012. Auditors sent 105 of those claims to a medical review contractor. The reviewers determined that the medical records failed to support any of those treatments as medically necessary.

Based on that sample, the auditors estimate that ACS was overpaid by at least $737,000 in that two-year period.

Advance Chiropractic did not respond to a request for comment, but in written comments to the Inspector General, they argue that the treatments were, in fact, medically necessary, and that the audit was flawed.