Forest Hills, Queens, NY – State Fines Clinic For Fraud and Patient Abuse

Forest Hills, Queens, NY – A substance abuse clinic in Forest Hill, is closed for the Jewish holidays, days after being fined fined $16.5M for state Medicaid fraud.    

The Forest Hills alcoholism and drug abuse treatment clinic faces closure for allegedly exploiting hundreds of patients in an elaborate scheme to defraud the state Medicaid program of millions of dollars, state investigators said.    At a hearing in Albany, the Medicaid Inspector General’s Office levied a $16.5 million fine on Community Related Services, located at 99 07 Queens Blvd., citing charges that the center billed the state for treatment services that were either grossly inadequate or unnecessary for its patients.
The state also froze $30 million in payments to the clinic and is trying to revoke its operating license.

The actions follow the release of an 18 page report last month detailing the state’s investigation into the clinic, which was founded in 1998 and serves about 600 patients annually.    According to the report, the clinical staff knowingly admitted patients for services that routinely failed to address their needs, bilking the state out of an average $11 million a year. Investigators also claimed the owners transferred $3.52 million in program assets into a separate company to pool illicit profits and avoid scrutiny from investigators.    

Nobody answered the phone at Community Related Services early this week, and signs in a front window said it was closed for the Jewish holidays.