Elizabethtown doctors who paid millions to settle claims of bill-padding are sued by chemotherapy patients

"Eight former patients or their estates have sued the Elizabethtown cancer doctors who paid the government $3.7 million last June to settle claims they extended chemotherapy treatments to pad their bills," Andrew Wolfson reports for The Courier-Journal. "The ex-patients or their families say in a suit filed in Hardin Circuit Court that the clinic negligently treated them by diluting treatment drugs and extending treatment periods, which allowed them to bill more to Medicaid and other programs." As a result, the plaintiffs say, they suffered unnecessary pain and anguish, and those who died did so prematurely.

The physicians whom the suit identifies as owners of the clinic, Yusuf Deshmukh and Rafiq Rahman, are under investigation by the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure. "The clinic's owners agreed to pay $3,739,325 last June to resolve allegations that they submitted false claims for payment to the Medicare, Medicaid and the military's medical provider for extending the duration of chemotherapy infusion treatment to patients, and for inappropriately billing office visits for infusion therapy," Wolfson reports.