Office of the Attorney General
Louisville Podiatry Practice Agrees to Pay Restitution to Medicaid After Attorney General's Investigation

Attorney General Jack Conway and his Office of Medicaid Fraud and Abuse Control today announced that two Louisville podiatrists have agreed to pay $86,051 in restitution for double billing the Kentucky Medicaid program. Tipton & Unroe, a podiatry practice owned by Paul Tipton and Bradford Unroe, both of Louisville, also entered into a corporate integrity agreement with the Office of the Attorney General.

The settlement and corporate integrity agreement are based on an investigation conducted by the Attorney General's Office of Medicaid Fraud and Abuse Control prompted by an allegation that Tipton & Unroe, P.S.C. was billing both Medicaid and Medicare for nail debridement services conducted at nursing homes in the Louisville area. Nail debridement involves the removal of a diseased toenail bed. The corporation would file an electronic claim on Medicare crossover patients, a portion of which was paid by Medicare and a portion of which was paid by Medicaid. The corporation would also file a paper claim which resulted in a duplicate payment by Medicaid.

The agreement also provides that Tipton and Unroe, P.S.C. has complied with the Office of Attorney General's request to hire a CPA firm to reconcile its account and that it will pay the Attorney General's office $10,000 in investigative costs. Furthermore, the portion of the business servicing nursing home patients has been sold.

"Due to the hard work of the investigators and prosecutors of my Office of Medicaid Fraud and Abuse Control, we have been able to make this substantial recovery for our Medicaid program. The taxpayers of this state can rest assured that we are doing all we can to control fraud and abuse in the Medicaid program." General Conway said.

Since taking office in January 2008, General Conway's Office of Medicaid Fraud and Abuse Control has recovered or been awarded more than $100 million dollars for the state and federal Medicaid programs. These cases range from lawsuits and settlements against pharmaceutical companies to cases against individual providers.