Judge orders Montana health clinic to pay nearly $6 million over false asbestos claims
A judge has ruled that a health clinic in a Montana town plagued by deadly asbestos contamination must pay the government almost $6 million in penalties and damages after submitting hundreds of false asbestos claims
BILLINGS, Mont. — A health clinic in a Montana town plagued by deadly asbestos contamination must pay the government almost $6 million in penalties and damages after it submitted hundreds of false asbestos claims, a judge ruled.
The 337 false claims made patients eligible for Medicare and other benefits they shouldn't have received. The federally funded clinic has been at the forefront of the medical response to deadly pollution from mining near Libby, Montana
The judgement against the Center for Asbestos Related Disease clinic comes in a federal case filed by BNSF Railway in 2019 under the False Claims Act, which allows private parties to sue on the government’s behalf.
BNSF — which is itself a defendant in hundreds of asbestos-related lawsuits — alleged the center submitted claims on behalf of patients without sufficient confirmation they had asbestos-related disease.
After a seven-person jury agreed last month, U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen said in a July 18 order that he was imposing a stiff penalty to prevent future misconduct.
Christensen said he was concerned in particular that the clinic's high-profile doctor, Brad Black, had diagnosed himself with asbestos-related disease and that a nurse signed off for benefits for her own mother.
The judge also cited evidence at trial of high rates of opioid prescriptions from the clinic for people who may not have had a legitimate asbestos-related diagnosis.
The clinic demonstrated “a reckless disregard for proper medical procedure and the legal
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