Medicaid Fraud Ruling Against Goldstar Medical Upheld

HARTFORD — Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and Department of Social Services (DSS) Commissioner Patricia A. Wilson-Coker applauded a Superior Court decision this week affirming the agency’s finding that Goldstar Medical, Inc, of Farmington defrauded the state’s Medicaid program.

Judge Henry S. Cohn also upheld DSS’s order requiring Goldstar, which supplies oxygen to nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, to pay the state $198,193 in restitution and imposing a five-year ban on participation by the company and owner Donald F. Bouchard in the state Medicaid program.

Goldstar had appealed DSS’s ruling to the court.

“This major $200,000 recovery is for medical fraud that was bold and blatant — overbilling, falsifying medical records, and doctoring documents to extract extra dollars from taxpayers,” Mr Blumenthal said. “This scam was as brazen as it gets: Bouchard and his employees literally whited out doctors’ instructions to inflate the amount of oxygen ordered.

“This decision sends a powerful message: we will hold accountable anyone who scams or swindles state health programs. The company’s actions unfairly taint the vast majority of Medicaid contractors, who are honest and trustworthy,” the Attorney General added.

“Today’s announcement represents a decisive end to Goldstar Medical’s ill-conceived legal maneuverings of the last year, which were designed solely to escape responsibility for their wrongdoing,” Ms Wilson-Coker said. “That nearly $200,000 will be returned to the state demonstrates our determination to see these cases to a just and final conclusion in our courts.”

The DSS found that Mr Bouchard and Goldstar employees acting on his orders used white out to change doctors’ oxygen orders. For example, if a doctor wrote that patient was to receive oxygen “as needed,” Mr Bouchard and his employees would paint out those words and write over them “continuous,” allowing the company to defraud the state.

The company also billed the state for more expensive reusable equipment, but delivered cheaper disposable items, and charged for medical equipment that was in some cases never delivered and in other cases never ordered.