The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said it has reached a settlement with Dr. Don Flanagan and his affiliated companies concerning allegations that they submitted false claims for dental services to TennCare.
Flanagan and the affiliated companies, which include Dental Center and Cloudland Dental, have agreed to pay $1.5 million to resolve allegations that they knowingly and improperly submitted claims for dental services, which violates the False Claims Act and the Tennessee Medicaid False Claims Act, the DOJ said.
The DOJ added that Franci Raines, who was formerly employed as Cloudland Dental's business manager, also agreed to resolve similar allegations against her.
Flanagan formerly owned Cloudland Dental, which operated dental clinics in Chattanooga, Cleveland, Crossville, and Sweetwater. The DOJ said that the settlement resolves allegations that Cloudland knowingly submitted or caused to be submitted to TennCare payment claims that falsely identified Flanagan as the rendering provider for services that were actually rendered by uncredentialed dentists.
These actions allegedly occurred between January 2015 and February 2019. The uncredentialed dentists were ineligible to bill TennCare at Cloudland's offices located in Cleveland, Crossville, and Sweetwater.
