According to the indictment, on Nov. 20, 2012, White falsely attested to CMS that [Shelby Regional] met the meaningful use requirements for the 2012 fiscal year.  However, Shelby Regional relied on paper records throughout the fiscal year and only minimally used electronic health records.  To give the false appearance that the hospital was actually using Certified Electronic Health Record Technology, White directed its software vendor and hospital employees to manually input data from paper records into the electronic health record (EHR) software, often times months after the patient was discharged and after the end of the fiscal year.

The indictment further alleges that White falsely attested to the hospital’s meaningful use by using another person’s name and information without that individual’s consent or authorization.  As a result of the false attestation, CMS paid Shelby Regional $785,655.00.  In total, hospitals operated by Dr. Mahmood [the owner of Shelby Medical Holdings, which owns Shelby Regional], including Shelby Regional [3], were paid $16,794,462.66 by the Medicaid and Medicare EHR incentive programs for fiscal years 2011 and 2012.

This issue is garnering attention from regulators and law enforcement agencies because of the amount of money involved. According to the December 2013 numbers from CMS, to date, Medicare Eligible Professionals have been paid $4,079,968,376, Medicaid Eligible Professionals have been paid $2,566,267,286, and Eligible Hospitals have been paid $12,278,268,898. [4]

An spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of the Inspector General tells Information Security Media Group that this is "one of the first cases" to arise from an OIG investigation of submitting false HITECH Act EHR "meaningful use" attestations. He declined to discuss other HITECH Act related investigations under way. "This is an area of continuing interest" to the OIG, he says.