Commitments and Contingencies

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2018

Commitments and Contingencies Disclosure [Abstract]

Commitments and Contingencies

Commitments and Contingencies

Litigation

The Company is a party to various legal actions, proceedings, and claims (some of which are not insured), and regulatory and other governmental audits and investigations in the ordinary course of its business. The Company cannot predict the ultimate outcome of pending litigation, proceedings, and regulatory and other governmental audits and investigations. These matters could potentially subject the Company to sanctions, damages, recoupments, fines, and other penalties. The Department of Justice, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”), or other federal and state enforcement and regulatory agencies may conduct additional investigations related to the Company’s businesses in the future that may, either individually or in the aggregate, have a material adverse effect on the Company’s business, financial position, results of operations, and liquidity.

To address claims arising out of the Company’s operations, the Company maintains professional malpractice liability insurance and general liability insurance coverages through a number of different programs that are dependent upon such factors as the state where the Company is operating and whether the operations are wholly owned or are operated through a joint venture. For the Company’s wholly owned operations, the Company maintains insurance coverages under a combination of policies with a total annual aggregate limit of $35.0 million. The Company’s insurance for the professional liability coverage is written on a “claims-made” basis, and its commercial general liability coverage is maintained on an “occurrence” basis. These coverages apply after a self-insured retention limit is exceeded. For the Company’s joint venture operations, the Company has numerous programs that are designed to respond to the risks of the specific joint venture. The annual aggregate limit under these programs ranges from $5.0 million to $20.0 million. The policies are generally written on a “claims-made” basis. Each of these programs has either a deductible or self-insured retention limit. The Company reviews its insurance program annually and may make adjustments to the amount of insurance coverage and self-insured retentions in future years. The Company also maintains umbrella liability insurance covering claims which, due to their nature or amount, are not covered by or not fully covered by the Company’s other insurance policies. These insurance policies also do not generally cover punitive damages and are subject to various deductibles and policy limits. Significant legal actions, as well as the cost and possible lack of available insurance, could subject the Company to substantial uninsured liabilities. In the Company’s opinion, the outcome of these actions, individually or in the aggregate, will not have a material adverse effect on its financial position, results of operations, or cash flows.

Healthcare providers are subject to lawsuits under the qui tam provisions of the federal False Claims Act. Qui tam lawsuits typically remain under seal (hence, usually unknown to the defendant) for some time while the government decides whether or not to intervene on behalf of a private qui tam plaintiff (known as a relator) and take the lead in the litigation. These lawsuits can involve significant monetary damages and penalties and award bounties to private plaintiffs who successfully bring the suits. The Company is and has been a defendant in these cases in the past, and may be named as a defendant in similar cases from time to time in the future.

 Evansville Litigation.    On October 19, 2015, the plaintiff‑relators filed a Second Amended Complaint in United States of America, ex rel. Tracy Conroy, Pamela Schenk and Lisa Wilson v. Select Medical Corporation, Select Specialty Hospital-Evansville, LLC (“SSH‑Evansville”), Select Employment Services, Inc., and Dr. Richard Sloan. The case is a civil action filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana by private plaintiff‑relators on behalf of the United States under the federal False Claims Act. The plaintiff‑relators are the former CEO and two former case managers at SSH‑Evansville, and the defendants currently include the Company, SSH‑Evansville, a subsidiary of the Company serving as common paymaster for its employees, and a physician who practices at SSH‑Evansville. The plaintiff‑relators allege that SSH‑Evansville discharged patients too early or held patients too long, improperly discharged patients to and readmitted them from short stay hospitals, up‑coded diagnoses at admission, and admitted patients for whom long‑term acute care was not medically necessary. They also allege that the defendants engaged in retaliation in violation of federal and state law. The Second Amended Complaint replaced a prior complaint that was filed under seal on September 28, 2012 and served on the Company on February 15, 2013, after a federal magistrate judge unsealed it on January 8, 2013. All deadlines in the case had been stayed after the seal was lifted in order to allow the government time to complete its investigation and to decide whether or not to intervene. On June 19, 2015, the United States Department of Justice notified the District Court of its decision not to intervene in the case.

In December 2015, the defendants filed a Motion to Dismiss the Second Amended Complaint on multiple grounds, including that the action is disallowed by the False Claims Act’s public disclosure bar, which disqualifies qui tam actions that are based on fraud already publicly disclosed through enumerated sources, unless the relator is an original source, and that the plaintiff‑relators did not plead their claims with sufficient particularity, as required by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

Thereafter, the United States filed a notice asserting a veto of the defendants’ use of the public disclosure bar for claims arising from conduct from and after March 23, 2010, which was based on certain statutory changes to the public disclosure bar language included in the Affordable Care Act. On September 30, 2016, the District Court partially granted and partially denied the defendants’ Motion to Dismiss. It ruled that the plaintiff‑relators alleged substantially the same conduct as had been publicly disclosed and that the plaintiff relators are not original sources, so that the public disclosure bar requires dismissal of all non‑retaliation claims arising from conduct before March 23, 2010. The District Court also ruled that the statutory changes to the public disclosure bar gave the United States the power to veto its applicability to claims arising from conduct on and after March 23, 2010, and therefore did not dismiss those claims based on the public disclosure bar. However, the District Court ruled that the plaintiff‑relators did not plead certain of their claims relating to interrupted stay manipulation and premature discharging of patients with the requisite particularity, and dismissed those claims. The District Court declined to dismiss the plaintiff relators’ claims arising from conduct from and after March 23, 2010 relating to delayed discharging of patients and up-coding and the plaintiff relators’ retaliation claims. The plaintiff-relators then proposed a case management plan seeking nationwide discovery involving all of the Company’s LTCHs for the period from March 23, 2010 through the present and allowing discovery that would facilitate the use of statistical sampling to prove liability, which the defendants opposed. In April 2018, a U.S. magistrate judge ruled that plaintiff‑relators’ discovery will be limited to only SSH-Evansville for the period from March 23, 2010 through September 30, 2016, and that the plaintiff‑relators will be required to prove the fraud that they allege on a claim-by-claim basis, rather than using statistical sampling. The plaintiff-relators have appealed this decision to the District Judge.

The Company intends to vigorously defend this action, but at this time the Company is unable to predict the timing and outcome of this matter.

Wilmington Litigation.    On January 19, 2017, the United States District Court for the District of Delaware unsealed a qui tam Complaint in United States of America and State of Delaware ex rel. Theresa Kelly v. Select Specialty Hospital-Wilmington, Inc. (“SSH‑Wilmington”), Select Specialty Hospitals, Inc., Select Employment Services, Inc., Select Medical Corporation, and Crystal Cheek, No. 16‑347‑LPS. The Complaint was initially filed under seal in May 2016 by a former chief nursing officer at SSH‑Wilmington and was unsealed after the United States filed a Notice of Election to Decline Intervention in January 2017. The corporate defendants were served in March 2017. In the complaint, the plaintiff‑relator alleges that the Select defendants and an individual defendant, who is a former health information manager at SSH‑Wilmington, violated the False Claims Act and the Delaware False Claims and Reporting Act based on allegedly falsifying medical practitioner signatures on medical records and failing to properly examine the credentials of medical practitioners at SSH‑Wilmington. In response to the Select defendants’ motion to dismiss the Complaint, in May 2017 the plaintiff-relator filed an Amended Complaint asserting the same causes of action. The Select defendants filed a Motion to Dismiss the Amended Complaint based on numerous grounds, including that the Amended Complaint did not plead any alleged fraud with sufficient particularity, failed to plead that the alleged fraud was material to the government’s payment decision, failed to plead sufficient facts to establish that the Select defendants knowingly submitted false claims or records, and failed to allege any reverse false claim. In March 2018, the District Court dismissed the plaintiff‑relator’s claims related to the alleged failure to properly examine medical practitioners’ credentials, her reverse false claims allegations, and her claim that defendants violated the Delaware False Claims and Reporting Act. It denied the defendants’ motion to dismiss claims that the allegedly falsified medical practitioner signatures violated the False Claims Act. Separately, the District Court dismissed the individual defendant due to plaintiff-relator’s failure to timely serve the amended complaint upon her.

In March 2017, the plaintiff-relator initiated a second action by filing a Complaint in the Superior Court of the State of Delaware in Theresa Kelly v. Select Medical Corporation, Select Employment Services, Inc., and SSH‑Wilmington, C.A. No. N17C-03-293 CLS. The Delaware Complaint alleges that the defendants retaliated against her in violation of the Delaware Whistleblowers’ Protection Act for reporting the same alleged violations that are the subject of the federal Amended Complaint. The defendants filed a motion to dismiss, or alternatively to stay, the Delaware Complaint based on the pending federal Amended Complaint and the failure to allege facts to support a violation of the Delaware Whistleblowers’ Protection Act.  In January 2018, the Court stayed the Delaware Complaint pending the outcome of the federal case.

The Company intends to vigorously defend these actions, but at this time the Company is unable to predict the timing and outcome of this matter.

Contract Therapy Subpoena. On May 18, 2017, the Company received a subpoena from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey seeking various documents principally relating to the Company’s contract therapy division, which contracted to furnish rehabilitation therapy services to residents of skilled nursing facilities (“SNFs”) and other providers. The Company operated its contract therapy division through a subsidiary until March 31, 2016, when the Company sold the stock of the subsidiary. The subpoena seeks documents that appear to be aimed at assessing whether therapy services were furnished and billed in compliance with Medicare SNF billing requirements, including whether therapy services were coded at inappropriate levels and whether excessive or unnecessary therapy was furnished to justify coding at higher paying levels. The Company does not know whether the subpoena has been issued in connection with a qui tam lawsuit or in connection with possible civil, criminal or administrative proceedings by the government. The Company is producing documents in response to the subpoena and intends to fully cooperate with this investigation. At this time, the Company is unable to predict the timing and outcome of this matter.