N.Y. Auditors Investigate Billion-Dollar Home-Care Nonprofit

New York State auditors are investigating a major nonprofit health organization suspected of overbilling Medicaid, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Visiting Nurse Service of New York, which says it is the country’s largest nonprofit home-health organization, cares for about 30,000 disabled and chronically ill people and draws most of its revenue—$1.1-billion in 2009—from Medicaid and Medicare.

An internal draft report prepared by auditors last year said Visiting Nurse Service billed Medicaid for services that were not performed or were not authorized by doctors.

Richard Rothstein, a vice president of the nonprofit, said in a statement that the audit, which the state started in 2008, is “routine” and that claims of inflated billing in the draft document were “scurrilous rumors.”