Three dental practices in Southwest Washington have reached a settlement with the state attorney general over fraudulent Medicaid billing. Together, the practices will pay more than one million dollars to resolve the cases.
The practices named in the agreement are Tooth Docs of Commerce, Comfort Dental, and Dentist at Felita in Vancouver. The settlements close out separate allegations that each had improperly billed the state's Medicaid program.
According to the agreement, Tooth Docs is paying about half a million dollars for miscoded billings between 2017 and 2023. Those included instances of charging Medicaid for ibuprofen while billing it as a prescription treatment.
Comfort Dental was also flagged for billing Medicaid for more expensive pain treatments than were warranted. Under its settlement, the practice will pay about 230,000 dollars.
Meanwhile, Dentist at Felita will pay more than 360,000 dollars for billing Medicaid for procedures that lacked proper documentation. The amount reflects the share attributed to that practice in the combined resolution.
The cases center on how Medicaid claims were coded and documented, with the state taking the position that the billing practices did not match the care actually provided or the way it should have been recorded.
Settlements of this kind allow the practices to resolve the allegations through financial payments. The combined total of more than one million dollars is intended to recover funds tied to the disputed billings.
The agreements underscore continued scrutiny of how publicly funded health programs are billed, as officials seek to ensure that claims submitted to Medicaid accurately reflect the treatments delivered to patients.