Judge allows nursing homes to continue fight over $5 million staffing app bill

A federal judge has allowed a nursing home chain to challenge a $5 million claim from a temporary staffing agency, concluding that the provider made “plausible” claims that key delivery documents were missing from the invoices.

Utah-based Nursa initially sued Oxford Valley Health in U.S. District Court, demanding payment of unpaid bills that had accumulated over just over a year, including $4.2 million in nurse placement fees and about $781,000 -dollars in late payment interest. Interest continues to accrue.

Oxford Valley countered with a lead lawsuit of its own in March, arguing that the software-based staffing agency failed to honor its end of a contract through 2022 by billing for work shifts during which “a significant portion…was not available.” /out records or any other form of documentation to demonstrate that the clinician performed the work during billed shifts.”

Nursa asked the court this summer to dismiss Oxford's lawsuit, saying it was Oxford's duty to dispute any “billing inaccuracies” within the time required by the agreement. Nursa's motion went even further, arguing that nothing in the agreement with Oxford prevented the recruiting app from charging for services not provided.

Judge Ann Marie McIff Allen of the U.S. District Court for Utah rejected Nursa's attempt to shift blame back to the provider in a brief but strongly worded six-page ruling issued Oct. 21 denying the motion to dismiss.

She cited language from the agreement that required Nursa to document job ID, physician name, start time, end time, break length, hours worked, billing rate and total amount billed. Nursa has stated that this documentation will “accurately reflect completed and verified (manual or automatic) shift reports from their app.”

“Assuming this allegation is true, which is what the court must do at this point, Nursa has failed to document '…start time, end time, break length (if any)'.” [and] “The total number of hours worked…' as agreed upon,” McIff Allen wrote.

“Nursa only focuses on whether the documentation has been 'verified'. However, even assuming documentation has been reviewed, it must accurately reflect information from completed shift reports,” she continued. “The counterclaim alleges that Nursa billed for services without providing time records or other documentation showing that a physician worked a shift. Therefore, billing is not based on documentation that “truly reflects.”[s] completed. . . Shift reports', Nursa allegedly billed on a different basis.”

A spokeswoman for the recruiting app said late Monday that the company was preparing a response for the judge.

“Nursa works with thousands of medical facilities across the United States. We are completely transparent about our terms of use upfront and throughout the term of each contract. The vast majority of our customers have no problem making timely payments, which is critical to ensuring caregivers are compensated for the life-saving care they provide,” the spokesperson said McKnight's Long-Term Care News. “Unfortunately, when our efforts to pay overdue invoices are rejected and a facility has indicated its intent to avoid payment for services rendered, we are left with no choice but to take legal action. We are very confident in our position and look forward to resolving this matter in court.”

Meanwhile, an Oxford Valley spokesperson said the case will now move to the investigative and class certification phases. This was previously announced by a lawyer for the provider McKights She filed her case as a class action lawsuit because “like so many others, we feel exploited by people like Nursa, who have threatened to deny us access to their services and have done so after raising our concerns had expressed significant concerns about over-invoicing.

One of Oxford Valley's biggest concerns was the staging app's use of a 48-hour billing review window. Invoices that were not disputed at this time were considered automatically verified by the staffing provider.

The New Jersey-based operator had three facilities in Arizona and Nevada at the time the lawsuit was filed; Guardian Healhcare's bankruptcy restructuring recently added 11 facilities in Pennsylvania.

It argued that the $4.2 million invoices were inflated, meaning Nursa “knew or should have known that it was seeking payment from Oxford for health services not provided.”