Charlotte-based Cardinal Innovations Healthcare and its ousted former CEO, Richard Topping, have agreed to a settlement and dropped their respective lawsuits, according to a recent court filing. Cardinal will pay Topping $500,000, Topping’s attorney, David Rudolf, said Wednesday. An attorney for Cardinal did not immediately respond to an email from WFAE confirming the dollar amount.
Cardinal coordinated behavioral health care for Medicaid recipients in 20 North Carolina counties, including Cabarrus, Mecklenburg, Rockingham, Stanly and Union. In March 2018, Cardinal sued Topping in an attempt to recover nearly $1.7 million in severance pay. Topping filed a countersuit against Cardinal, accusing the company of making false statements and damaging his reputation.
According to the settlement, no trial date had been set to address either lawsuit.
“Cardinal Innovations stands by all claims and defenses it has asserted in this case, and strongly believes it would have prevailed had it proceeded to trial in the courts,” Cardinal said in a statement.
Topping appears to now work as the chief legal officer at CareSource, an Ohio-based Medicaid managed care company.
“The Cardinal Innovations Board has accepted responsibility for the misconduct of its former employees,” Rudolf said in a statement, adding that the $500,000 payment was for “false and defamatory statements made by Cardinal Innovations and its law firm … at a 2018 press conference.”
Starting March 31, Cardinal will become part of another company called Vaya Health. The settlement said Cardinal’s existing litigation and liabilities would not be assumed by Vaya in the merger.
In 2021, several North Carolina counties, including Cabarrus, Davie, Davidson, Mecklenburg, Orange, Rockingham, Stanly and Union, cut ties with Cardinal after complaining of poor service. Mecklenburg, as of December 2021 usesAlliance Health to coordinate behavioral health care for its Medicaid recipients.
Cardinal had a troubled tenure in North Carolina.
In 2017, a scathing state audit found that Topping was paid at least $635,000 per year—much more than state rules allow. Topping was also accused of spending taxpayer money on lavish trips for Cardinal board members. Topping was fired in 2017. North Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services briefly took over Cardinal and fired its board of directors.
