Dallas Judge Refuses To Toss Lawsuit Against Texas Vascular Associates

DALLAS, Aug. 15, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- A Dallas Judge has refused to throw out the case of a former employee of Texas Vascular Associates, PA (TVA). Cortez Mills alleges in the lawsuit that the doctors of Texas Vascular Associates fired her for the sole reason of refusing to follow their orders to engage in the crimes of Medicare and insurance billing fraud. Dallas Judge Ken Tapscott is the presiding judge in the case.

Cortez Mills began working for TVA in 2010 and was the company's only certified medical coding professional. According to the lawsuit, Ms. Mills discovered the fraudulent billing practices while reviewing and releasing patient bills to Medicare and private insurers for payment.

"Ms. Mills identified what we believe was an illegal scheme at TVA, and she lost her job for refusing to play along," says Dallas attorney Matt Scott of the Kendall Law Group, who represents Ms. Mills. "She had the courage to speak up, and spoke up loudly, because she knew this was wrong."

According to the lawsuit Ms. Mills uncovered numerous ways TVA and its physicians illegally bill Medicare and private insurance carriers, including instances where a doctor without a Medicare billing number would submit bills using other doctors' numbers.

The lawsuit also claims TVA engaged in additional fraudulent activities including double-billing different insurance carriers for the same services, coding insurance claims so certain services would not be bundled, and billing for services that were never performed by physicians.

According to the claims, TVA doctors repeatedly and directly ordered Mills to engage in billing fraud and when she objected, one of the doctors told her "I pay your (expletive deleted) salary, just (expletive deleted) do what I tell you to do." A supervisor later reiterated "I don't care if he cusses you. He pays your salary, do what he says." The lawsuit contends the firing was because she refused to participate in the fraud.

"Before we agreed to take a case like this against a group of medical doctors, we carefully investigated Ms. Mills' claims," says Joe Kendall of the Kendall Law Group. "Ms. Mills voluntarily took and passed an all-day polygraph test by a former FBI agent and FBI polygraph examiner with decades of experience. The results confirmed her truthfulness as to every word in her lawsuit."

The lawsuit, Cortez Mills v. Texas Vascular Associates, et al., No. CC-12-04630-D, was filed on July 26, 2012, in Dallas County Court at Law No. 4.

The Kendall Law Group is a trial firm that represents individuals in a variety of legal matters. Visit the firm's website at http://www.kendalllawgroup.com.

For more information on the case, please contact Matt Scott at 214-744-3000.

Kendall Law Group LLP
3232 McKinney, Suite 700
Dallas, TX 75204
(877) 744-3728 Toll Free
(214) 744-3000 Telephone
(214) 744-3015 Facsimile
[email protected]
www.kendalllawgroup.com

SOURCE Kendall Law Group LLP