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Friday, January 25, 2013

Contracts Awarded Despite Inquiry


By Colleen Heild
Journal Investigative Reporter
Originally published on Jan 13, 2013
First of two parts

A Roswell, N.M.-based psychiatric services firm landed state Department of Health contracts that allow charges of up to $2,000 a day, even though it was under investigation for alleged Medicaid fraud at another state agency.

The contracts between the Department of Health and New Mexico Psychiatric Services signed last summer permit the company to bill up to $623,900 to provide on-call or temporary services to state-run health facilities.

They include the Sequoyah Adolescent Treatment Center in Albuquerque, a 36-bed residential treatment center for violent and mentally ill youth.

At the time the contacts were awarded last year, the company was facing allegations of Medicaid billing fraud at the state Human Services Department. Its payments for services for HSD have been suspended pending the outcome of the inquiry.

A top health department official said in an interview last month that he didn’t know New Mexico Psychiatric Services was under investigation at the time he helped evaluate proposals for the so-called “locum tenens” psychiatric services last April.

But in a follow-up response last week, the agency’s spokesman said others in the agency did know and the inquiry by the state Attorney General’s Office wasn’t a “determinative” factor.

DOH spokesman Kenny C. Vigil told the Journal that the president of New Mexico Psychiatric Services, Dr. Babak Mirin, made a “self disclosure” about the investigation before any contracts were signed last year.

Asked whom Mirin had informed at the DOH and when, Vigil responded: “I don’t have that information.”

The Department of Health and the Human Services Department are separate state agencies, albeit with some overlapping missions involving assistance to New Mexicans.

The Human Services Department, which administers behavioral health services, notified New Mexico Psychiatric Services nearly a year ago of the billing fraud inquiry by the AG’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit.

Mirin’s attorney, David H. Johnson, told the Journal in an email last week that the company has been cooperating with the AG’s investigation “and is committed to the repayment of any overpayments that it may have received.

“At this point there has only been an allegation of billing fraud,” Johnson’s email stated. “Fraud has not been established.”

The entire story is here.