The lawsuit filed by Cutler was originally filed in New York federal court, but Cigna contested jurisdiction and the case was ultimately transferred to Tennessee, against Cutler’s objections.
In August, Judge Eli Richardson of the U.S. District Court granted the government’s motion to intervene in Cutler’s suit, but not before rebuking Cigna’s lawyers for their description of the anti-fraud statute’s good-cause standard arguing the government’s late intervention in whistleblower complaints.
In the government’s intervening complaint filed on Monday, the government claims that Cigna’s vendors visited patients at their homes and filled out a form created by Cigna that included a “check-the-box” list of a wide range of various medical conditions to select from.
The government’s complaint alleges that Cigna would then have its coding teams identify diagnosis codes that corresponded to the reported medical conditions before they submitted them for reimbursement from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
