By Lynn Bonner, The News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C.
Jan. 23–Dominion Healthcare Services, a private mental-health company based in Raleigh, plans to sue two county mental-health offices and a private contractor for $1 billion, claiming they worked to drive the company out of business.
Willie Gary, a Florida lawyer and major Shaw University benefactor, is representing Dominion Healthcare. Joel Hopkins, a former Shaw basketball coach, is Dominion’s founder and CEO.
Gary’s firm said Tuesday that it would file the suit today against the Wake and Durham county mental-health offices and ValueOptions, a company the state hired to approve mental-health services for Medicaid patients. The law firm said it would hold a news conference this morning.
The suit would be another step in the legal back-and-forth between Dominion Healthcare and county mental-health offices.
Dominion is one of hundreds of companies in the state offering a mental-health service called community support. Dominion does business in the state’s biggest counties, including Wake, Durham and Mecklenburg.
State and local officials have investigated Dominion Healthcare several times in the past 15 months for alleged violations. County mental-health officials in Durham and Wake told Dominion late last year that they would take away the company’s licenses to bill Medicaid.
In administrative court hearings this month, Miki Jaeger, head of the quality management team for the Wake mental-health office, said the company altered medical documents to justify Medicaid payments. A manager from The Durham Center, the county’s mental-health office, testified she found patient medical records in an unsecured drop box outside a company office in Roxboro.
The company is appealing and won a ruling last week that forces the counties and ValueOptions to let Dominion Healthcare keep working and billing Medicaid while it seeks a final ruling.
In his ruling, Judge Joe Webster said the counties did not give the company a chance to correct its problems as the rules require.
There was no evidence to suggest the company was not meeting standards of care, Webster wrote. He was concerned that, in their review of company records, less-qualified government employees were second-guessing “licensed medical providers.”
ValueOptions was not part of the administrative case and was mentioned infrequently in testimony.
Kori Love, a spokeswoman for Gary’s firm, said the suit would cite ValueOptions for breach of contract. She provided no further details, saying they would be fully outlined today.
A spokesman for ValueOptions, Steve Anderson, said he knew nothing about the suit. Durham County Attorney Chuck Kitchen said he did not know whether his office would represent The Durham Center or whether the state Attorney General’s Office, which handled the administrative appeal, would pick up the case.
Noelle Talley, a spokeswoman for the Attorney General’s Office, said lawyers would have to review the complaint before they decided who would represent the county mental-health offices.
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