The former SIU Belleville Family Practice Program will voluntarily repay $207,000 to Medicaid for billing errors in 1995 and 1996 one official blames on a lack of supporting documentation and a shortage of staff.

SIU’s School of Medicine had to repay Medicaid, the state’s medical insurance program for the poor, because doctors in the Department of Family and Community Medicine had submitted improper or inaccurate bills for treating patients at the school’s Belleville clinic in 1995 and 1996.

Legal action could have been taken by Medicaid if the errors were found by the agency. The clinic’s billing errors were discovered by the clinic’s administrators and staff last spring, but school officials did not know if the internal finding of the errors prevented legal action.

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Carl Getto, dean and provost for the School of Medicine, said that the error may have occurred because of the lack of staff members and a heavy patient load.

The only thing that I think is at all relevant is that they were trying to do a lot of work without a large enough staff, Getto said. That could have contributed to the problem.

Getto said that some bills were submitted by SIU faculty doctors when the patients had been seen by nurse practitioners or by doctors-in-training.

The services were delivered without supporting documentation, he said.

Nancy Zimmers, director of public affairs for the School of Medicine, said that changes in recording billing documents that were made by the government in 1996 may also have played a part in the errors made by the physicians.

Whenever you have a major change like that there must be time for people to adapt to it, Zimmers said.

The repayment covers billing from Jan. 1, 1995 through Sept. 30, 1996. The errors were discovered by the clinic’s administrators and staff last spring.

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Getto said that neither students nor patients at any of the clinics need to worry about any price increases. The $207,000 bill was paid through the doctors’ clinical practice income.

Some administrative reorganizations occurred while the billing errors were taking place, but school officials say that the incidents were not related to the billing errors.

The Belleville clinic became disaffiliated with SIU the summer following the discovery of the billing errors.

Zimmers said that Belleville’s detachment had nothing to do with the billing errors.

Belleville wanted to become more community-based, she said.

Richard Barry, former chairman of the Department of Family and Community Medicine, resigned from the School of Medicine faculty in September 1996.

The School of Medicine employs 130 physicians and 250 residing physicians amongst their four clinics:Carbondale, Decatur, Springfield and Quincy.

Getto said that he does not believe that Barry’s resignation was tied to the billing errors.

Barry could not be reached for comment.