Features

WellPoint settles
fraud case for $9.25 million 

LOS ANGELES — Blue Cross of California and its parent company, WellPoint Health Networks, agreed to pay the government $9.25 million to resolve allegations that BCC defrauded Medicare, the Justice Department said Monday. 

BCC and WellPoint did not admit any wrongdoing. 

Responding to information provided by a former BCC employee, the government claimed that between 1990 and 2000 BCC falsified its audits of health care providers who were seeking reimbursements through Medicare. 

WellPoint, one of the nation’s largest managed health care companies with more than 13 million members, also offers other services, including underwriting, medical cost management, and claims processing. 

The government hired BCC to act as a watchdog against Medicare fraud. It claims the Thousand Oaks-based company falsified dates in a database to make the government believe BCC had performed more audit work that it did. 

“This settlement demonstrates that the government will continue to aggressively pursue health care fraud not only by providers but also by intermediaries or other contractors who submit false or fraudulent information to Medicare,” Robert D. McCallum, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Civil Division, said in a release. 

WellPoint denied the allegations and added that the settlement agreement will not prevent BCC or any of its affiliates from conducting business with federal or state governments. 

Budget Rent-A-Car parent
files for Chapter 11 

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — The parent of Budget Rent-A-Car, the world’s third-largest car and truck rental company, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Monday, blaming the post-Sept. 11 drop-off in travel. 

Founder of dead dot-com site
puts internal memos online  

NEW YORK — The publisher of a profane Web site that skewers troubled companies on Monday launched a new online service showcasing the correspondence of top executives and managers. 

InternalMemos.com is the brainchild of Philip J. Kaplan, a wisecracking high-tech contractor who touched a nerve in May 2000 when he launched a sarcastic Web site ridiculing dead dot-coms. 

The name of Kaplan’s original site, which attracts as many as 4 million visitors per month, is a vulgar twist on the high-tech magazine Fast Company, which hailed the rise of dot-coms in the late 1990s.