An Alabama federal jury found one of the nation’s largest for-profit hospice care providers guilty in a $67.5 million Medicare fraud whistleblower lawsuit for billing the federal government for patients who weren’t terminally ill.

Jurors were presented with Medicare reimbursement claims for 121 patients in the whistleblower lawsuit. That was a sample of the more than 40,000 patients AseraCare billed for during a four-year period. The jury found that 104 of the 121 claims were fraudulent.

The verdict marks the end of the first phase of a trial based on claims by by six AseraCare whistleblowers. The trial is the largest whistleblower lawsuit involving a hospice company in the United States.

AseraCare operates about 60 hospice facilities in 19 states, including Alabama, with around 10,000 admissions each year, according to court documents. Most AseraCare patients do not have private insurance and are enrolled in Medicare, court documents show.

A patient can only be considered for the Medicare hospice benefits if they are diagnosed as terminally ill with a life expectancy of six months or less. The patients, or their families, also must agree to give up seeking a cure to be eligible.

The former workers alleged in AseraCare whistleblower lawsuit the company had fraudulently billed Medicare for patients who weren’t really on the verge of dying. Company officials have denied the allegations and have said the cases come down to a difference of opinion among medical experts.

AseraCare Whistleblower Lawsuit Continues

The second phase of the whistleblower trial before U.S. District Court Judge Karon Bowdre involves allegations that AseraCare pressured nurses and doctors to sign up patients and keep them under Medicare-funded hospice care.

That information was kept from the jry throughout the first phase of the trial. Phase one of the whistleblower trial began Aug. 10.

If the jury also finds against AseraCare in the second phase, prosecutors with the U.S. Department of Justice have said they would seek more than $200 million in Medicare reimbursement, fines and other penalties. Some of the money would go to the whistleblowers who first brought the false claims to the government’s attention.

These whistleblower lawsuits are part of a national initiative to crack down on health care fraud. Under the law created to encourage whistleblowers, the False Claims Act, those who make the complaints are provided with protection from retaliation and are entitled to a percentage of the money recovered if the lawsuits are successful.