A St. Louis-based pain management physician is suing to keep the federal government from collecting millions in refunds after it allegedly overpaid his practice $14,418.93.
Gurpreet Padda, MD, filed a lawsuit April 27 to block the federal government from collecting a multimillion dollar payment after CoventBridge Group found CMS overpaid his practice.
"The difference in clinical opinion serves as the basis for the defendants' overpayment demand, which relies on a flawed and invalid statistical methodology to inflate $14,418.93 in alleged overpayments to an extrapolated alleged overpayment of more than $5,964,295, a 39,934% increase," the lawsuit states.
Dr. Padda, owner of Interventional Center for Pain Management, has a pending administrative appeal, but it can take four or more years for appeals to be resolved. Being required to make the payment in the meantime would force him to close his practice, he states in the lawsuit.
The lawsuit asks a federal judge to halt payment demands until his appeal is heard.