Benjamin Landa, President Donald Trump's nominee for Ambassador to Hungary, is suing the very same administration over Medicare payments made to a nursing home he co-owns.
For additional context, Landa, a big-name Trump donor, co-owns Pinnacle Multicare Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, which received $31.2 million in Medicare overpayments. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued an audit calling for the government to recoup this money.
This is because the first Trump Administration devised a new system for Medicare payments, which is designed to "improve payment accuracy and appropriateness by focusing on the enrollee, rather than volume of services provided," as opposed to the previous system, which reimbursed nursing homes based on the number of minutes of therapy provided to patients.
The HHS audit found that under this new system, Pinnacle violated CMS billing requirements in 99 of the 100 claims audited.
However, Pinnacle and Landa argue that the audit discrepancies are due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and that the auditors "blatantly ignored" state and federal waivers for documentation and billing requirements in place during COVID.
Moreover, only two COVID-related deaths occurred at Pinnacle during the height of the pandemic, which they say is the most important piece of data to look at.
Landa had previously sued journalists who were alleging fraud at other nursing facilities in which he has ownership interests, but judges dismissed both cases.
He has also been on the receiving end of lawsuits, as an employment agency he co-owns was sued by several Filipino nurses who allege they were trafficked, threatened with civil and criminal litigation should the nurses leave, and had their wages withheld.
In addition, New York Attorney General Letitia James sued Landa twice in 2022, alleging that two other nursing facilities in which he held ownership interests, The Villages at Orleans Health and Cold Spring Hills, mistreated their patients.
