Automated HealthCare Solutions (AHCS) review

Quote

Anonymous

Guest
Good day, my job seeking mate! I assume the fact that you opened this post is because you've fruitlessly tried to find any scoop about this pawn shop. Well, lemme give you a tour:

The product is a software that allows doctors to dispense prepackaged pharmaceuticals for workers compensation patients in their offices. It makes a lot of money. AHCS uses a supplier with the highest AWP (average wholesale price) in the US, encourages their customers to use that supplier, then bills for the meds that MDs dispense through that software. They also push products manufactured by a company that's owned by the executives of AHCS. They invest millions of dollars into political campaigns to keep the sweet gig going because it's highly controversial, and the opponents (insurance companies and states' legislators) complain about it, but hey - you gotta do what you gotta do to make money. I'm cool with all that. I happen to think that doctors should dispense and make extra money because their reimbursements are getting cut for virtually all services they provide.

The crap part about this company is that during the time I've worked here they've fired so many people that my head is spinning. I'm going to get petty here.. The head of HR has no college degree, and no soul. If you send her an email, you'll get fired, she doesn't do email. If you talk to her in person, you'll get fired, she doesn't like talking. But she is a friend of someone high up so she is safe no matter who she pisses off. Oh, and her husband is a VP of something although nobody is quite sure what that is. I have a tomato plant in my garden, and I think that plant and this man have the same IQ.

The guy that's unofficially in charge, éminence grise of this operation, is the corporate attorney who spent 30 years working in a sheriff's office, then decided to go practice law, and eventually wound up with this lovely establishment. If one conducted his personality profile placement test he would be fit to only work as a bouncer at a night cap bar. He intimidates and scares people into submission, quite successfully I hear.. For a company of less than 300 people - four full-time attorneys on staff? Hmm...

They fire everybody, the bad and the good. You never see it coming. They fire after they spin their 'firing' wheel every other week after they smash golf clubs on their office walls. They never give a reason, just 'we are at-will state, see you later'. Would be nice if they gave you 'real' quota, right now I think my contract says 'a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow by the end of each month'. They don't specify how big a pot they want. You think you are awesome, performing 700% above quota (got a pot of gold and whacked a leprechaun) - nah, don't bring in your favorite framed photo of horse's ass just yet, because - wait for it... wait for it - you guessed it - - you are fired!!

The president of the company doesn't have a college degree either, but that's cool, he seems pretty smart. The dude that stole my lawn mower last month was pretty smart too. The billing management: besides their famous attitude that I guess could be attributed to their upbringing 70 miles south of Key West, the ladies need to take some leadership classes and perhaps brush up on spelling? Nothing like representing a great company to a customer while putting my i-phone auto correct to shame.. 'Me workie in AHC'

To sum it up - there is no job security, none whatsoever, the culture is that of intimidation and uncertainty, no transparency about what's going on within, pay is crap, management is incompetent (no training is required to become a manager, and college degree is prohibited), good performance is NOT rewarded and folks are promoted SOLELY, I repeat SOLELY, based on nepotism. Good luck if you got an offer, and welcome to the club of suckers who wish they'd never worked there!
 












Here is what media are saying about this company:

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com..._prescription-drugs-mike-haridopolos-insurers

http://flaglerlive.com/11960/authomated-healthcare-solutions/

http://www.postonpolitics.com/tag/automated-healthcare-solutions/

http://www.sunshinestatenews.com/news-tags/automated-healthcare-solutions

http://www.tampabay.com/news/politi...ld-up-by-dispute-over-doctors-offices/1168080

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/12/b...llions-selling-drugs.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

http://bigislandnow.com/tag/automated-healthcare-solutions/

http://www.abcactionnews.com/dpp/ne...rs-continue-to-mark-up-drugs-for-hurt-workers

http://floridaindependent.com/57463/automated-healthcare-solutions-lobbying

This is from the blogger that AHCS sued for exercising his freedom of speech. The guy is definitely not open to the other side's prospective and therefore does not win my respect as far as objective writing goes but reading these makes me laugh and cringe at once at how much hate this company generates. They take this hatred and project it on their employees.

http://www.joepaduda.com/2013/03/the-new-compounds-whos-making-them/
http://www.joepaduda.com/2013/03/wrapping-workers-comp-week/
http://www.joepaduda.com/2012/10/newest-scam/
http://www.joepaduda.com/2012/10/how-profitable-physician-dispensing-business/
http://www.joepaduda.com/2012/10/floridas-failing-drug-program/
http://www.joepaduda.com/2012/09/is-problem-here/
http://www.joepaduda.com/2012/07/wcri_-_under_as/
http://www.joepaduda.com/2012/01/3_million_and_c/
http://www.joepaduda.com/2012/01/can_money_buy_b/
 












Thank you for the insightful advice, Mr. AHCS executive...

This statement confirms my point that you have deep contempt for your employees. Your basic formula: those who express opinions not in line with your 'brain dead employee is a good employee' notion = firing material = suitable to only work as an unskilled laborer is fundamentally faulty. Keep it up the firing routine and it will come back to bite you.

Nice day, sir!
 






I like this post from Paduda: http://www.joepaduda.com/2010/09/ahcs_-_whats_no/

This is my favorite part:
"AHCS attempted to bully me into retracting my statements on the basis of nothing more than their say-so. When I offered to review any materials they’d provide, retract any statements in error and apologize publicly, they ignored my letter and filed suit.
I find this, well, weird. Here they had the opportunity to get me to publicly acknowledge errors, publish a retraction, and apologize for those errors, yet they decided to hire Ron Sachs and a high-powered law firm to file suit against me. If they had provided that documentation, and we had a chance to discuss their issues, this might well have been a post of apology and correction, which would have resolved the entire issue in a couple of weeks at zero expense".

The company mission is to screw as many people as possible at any cost. They would rather pay lawyers at a million dollars an hour for doing work that doesn't need to be done than paying their own employees proper commission. Some principle.
 






All this is positively true, especially the swinging of golf clubs by a certain executive in his office. Can you say Anger Management? The HR Director was your adversary instead of your advocate. Never returned emails or calls. The ways they'd fire people were legendary. Meeting someone at an airport for lunch because the boss had a layover, then tell them to hand over all their company issued items. Another person was walking out of a physicians office when their mobile phone shut down. It took literally 4 days for anyone with this lovely company to let this person know they had been fired. When asked "why?" They responded with the b.s. line "We are an at will state." Best day of my life, no kidding, was the day I got a fedex package with a letter stating I was being fired.
 






The airport thing is classic. How about all the brainless bimbos they pick to 'manage' field reps.. oh, man..... the stories I could tell you..

It's also great when you get a phone call from HR telling you are fired in the middle of an appointment signing a new deal. "We are at will state". What does that even mean??? If I have an at-will ass, is it at will to poop any time it feels like it? I don't think so. It has rules to follow and people's furniture to respect.

How about: your performance sucks, or you didn't kiss my ass in the right spot, or I don't like your belt buckle? Or, your brain matter is more biologically active that company's hand book requires? SOMETHING?
 






WorkCompSchool.com, 2-14-2014 post

Unsealed Whistleblower Case Opens Window on Repackaged Drugs: Top [2014-02-14]
By Peter Mantius, Northern Bureau Chief

Federal investigators concluded in 2012 that Automated Health Care Solutions LLC of Miramar, Fla., had billed the U.S. Department of Labor at highly inflated rates for medications in workers’ compensation cases, but that the company’s practices were not illegal because of a loophole in federal rules.
After the federal investigation, which had been spurred by a sealed federal whistleblower lawsuit against AHCS, the loophole was promptly closed, court documents show.
In response, the two whistleblowers, the supervisor of the company’s national sales operations and the vice president for its western division, obtained a dismissal of their lawsuit and tried to keep its existence a secret.

But U.S. District Judge James F. Holderman of Illinois sided with the government’s argument in favor of unsealing the case, opening up detailed allegations of AHCS’s practice of recruiting doctors who dispense medications to workers’ compensation patients.
According to the suit, AHCS routinely paid physicians 70% of what the company reported as the average wholesale price of medications for the right to collect reimbursements from the Department of Labor on workers’ compensation claims by federal workers.

Despite the discounted rates, physicians still stood to reap big returns.
For example, according to AHCS marketing materials cited in the suit, a physician dispensing 30 tablets of the drug Mobic would pay $5.21 for the tablets, which the company claimed had an average wholesale price of $218.74.

Under the terms of the company’s agreement with the physician, he would receive 70% of that, or $153.12. That yielded the physician $147.91 for a profit margin of 2,800%, the suit said.
The whistleblower allegations parallel claims made by Allstate Insurance Co. in an unrelated 2013 federal lawsuit against AHCS subsidiary Prescription Partners in Michigan.
Allstate had alleged that Prescription Partners also paid physicians 70% of the reimbursement value of drugs dispensed by physicians and then charged Allstate amounts far in excess of average wholesale prices. Allstate also submitted company marketing materials to support its claims.
Alia Faraj-Johnson, a spokeswoman for AHCS and its affiliates, had called the Allstate suit “meritless” shortly after it was filed in July 2013, and Allstate voluntarily dismissed the case three months later.
AHCS has been at the forefront nationally of efforts to preserve the practice of physician-dispensed drugs against efforts by certain state legislatures and regulators to restrict or ban it. The company, which operates in about 30 states, has also actively fought efforts by states to adopt price restrictions on repackaged drugs.
The whistleblower lawsuit that was dismissed in Illinois in 2012 provides a glimpse into the company’s practices based on the allegations of two insiders, Sales Manager Shaun Jacob of Illinois and District Head Benjamin Kohnen of Wisconsin.
Efforts to reach Jacob and Faraj-Johnson Thursday were not successful.
In arguing for the need to permanently seal their lawsuit in 2012, Jacob and Kohnen told the judge that the proceedings on file in the case were one-sided and would not provide the public a balanced view.
“All that exists is an unverified qui tam complaint alleging narrow instances of fraud, an order sealing the case, unopposed motions by the government to extend the seal, orders granting those requests” and the plaintiff’s motion for a permanent seal that had disclosed the government’s investigation of the allegations.
By unsealing the case, the court made public the fact that an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice, the Department of Labor and the U.S. Postal Service concluded that the allegations of overcharging were valid, but not illegal.
“Specifically, under Department of Labor regulations in effect at the time, because the medications at issue were dispensed from physician offices and not pharmacies, they were permitted to be, and ultimately were, billed under j-codes,” the motion explained.
“Although both j-code claims and traditional pharmacy claims can be used to seek reimbursement for the same drugs, j-codes are often used in medical claims which are not tied to average wholesale price (AWP) formulations, while AWP is traditionally used as a reimbursement measure for claims emanating from pharmacies.
“Importantly,” the motion explained, “at the time (the whistleblower suit was filed), claims submitted under j-codes were not subject to any reimbursement restrictions at all.”
The motion went on to say that the Department of Labor had “rectified the loophole.” The department has ruled that “claims for medications submitted under both the traditional pharmacy claims codes as well as claims submitted under j-codes must adhere to the same AWP-based reimbursement rates.”
At the time Jacob and Kohnen filed their unsuccessful motion to seal the case, AHCS was “unaware of this lawsuit,” the motion said.
But the evidence the two company insiders had presented in a bid to stimulate a federal investigation provides a picture of how AHCS recruited physicians.
One package for physician prospects entitled, “ezDispense-powered by AHCS” touted “significant revenue opportunity for physicians.”
It said a practice’s annual earnings could be estimated by multiplying “2.5 scripts per patient” by “$100 av profit per script” by the number of workers’ compensation patients the practice treated by 50 weeks per year.
The recruitment package included a “sample formulary” that included, among many others, the following:

Ibuprofen. Strength: 88 mg. Count: 60. Cost: $6.00. AWP: $32.65. Guaranteed payment to physician: $22.86. Revenue to physician: $16.86.
Oxycodone/APAP. Strength: 5-325 mg. Count: 90. Cost: $11.00. AWP: $294.60. Guaranteed payment to physician: $206.22. Revenue to physician: $195.22.
Ciprofloxacin. Strength: 500 mg. Count: 20. Cost: $6.45. AWP: $151.80. Guaranteed payment to physician: $106.26. Revenue to physician: $99.81.


The dismissed whistleblower suit did not explicitly state where physicians were to obtain their low-cost, prepackaged medications, but the marketing material did refer to “JIT − Just in Time Inventory.”
Allegations − now dismissed − in the 2013 Allstate suit went a bit further, asserting that AHCS and Prescription Partners had a “very close relationship” with Toledo, Ohio-based drug repackager Quality Care Products.
Allstate noted that AHCS and QCP cosponsored a golf tournament in Orlando, Fla.

In recent weeks, legislators in Pennsylvania and Hawaii have moved to limit physician dispensing of drugs in the workers’ compensation system and to cap prices on physician-dispensed drugs.
In AHCS’s home state of Florida, nearly 7,000 physicians are licensed to dispense drugs. Payments for doctor-dispensed drugs climbed from $35.9 million in 2007 to $63.2 million in $2010, according to the state Division of Workers’ Compensation.
The National Council on Compensation Insurance once estimated that curbing payments to dispensing doctors would translate into a $62 million reduction in state workers’ compensation rates, a 2.5% cut.
The Florida Chamber of Commerce and insurance carriers have waged a high-profile, multi-year battle with AHCS about limiting prices of physician-dispensed drugs. Each side has spent millions of dollars in political campaign contributions and lobbying expenses to make its case.
 






A lot of physicians who use AHCS and were working with these sales people are beyond furious about the whistleblower thing and they feel they were getting set up by these guys to get in trouble. These managers continued maintaining relationships with current accounts, selling to new accounts and getting paid by the company while feeding the feds the insider information! And the allegations weren't even valid! That's some dumb lawyers that took on that case.

AHCS is going to lose a lot of business; but the positive is they finally got some of their own medicine and maybe will learn that treating others like shit will get them nothing but more shit. Bravo, Shaun Jacob and Ben Kohnen, you fucked over AHCS, and that's a significant accomplishment of its own..! Although it's hard to wish to be in your shoes - your reputation is ruined forever.
 
























Top Bottom
Back
Quote