Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey is suing CleanSlate Centers for allegedly defrauding the state Medicaid program out of millions of dollars. Meanwhile, the national addiction treatment center chain says the allegations are meritless.
The lawsuit asserts that CleanSlate submitted millions of dollars worth of false claims for unnecessary urine drug tests to MassHealth. On top of that, it claims the medication-assisted treatment (MAT) provider violated state and federal self-referral laws by sending those tests to its own lab.
In addition to CleanSlate, the suit also targets former company owner Amanda Louise Wilson.
“This company’s business model was to illegally profit by cheating our state Medicaid program, which provides vital health care resources to some of our most vulnerable residents,” Healey said in a press release announcing the lawsuit. “We will take legal action against this kind of misconduct in order to recover funds for our state and protect the integrity of MassHealth.”
Meanwhile, CleanSlate denied the claims in an email to Behavioral Health Business.
“We are disappointed with the Attorney General’s decision to intervene in this matter,” the provider told BHB in a statement. “We strongly believe this claim is without merit, and we look forward to the opportunity to demonstrate in court that the care provided to our patients was outstanding and the lab tests that were ordered were medically necessary. Maintaining a culture of integrity is of the utmost importance to our company and we remain confident that our business practices and policies fully comply with both federal and state law.”
With dozens of centers across 11 states, CleanSlate provides MAT services to people with various substance use disorders (SUD). It also owns and operates an independent clinical laboratory in Holyoke, Massachusetts, where it performs tests for its patients.
The company was previously headquartered in Northampton, Massachusetts. However, in late 2017, CleanSlate relocated its main office to Nashville, Tennessee.
The allegations in the lawsuit pre-date that move. A whistleblower originally made the claims in a case filed back in April 2017.
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