NEWARK, N.J. (AP) – New Jersey’s largest health-care provider, which recently agreed to pay $265 million to settle charges of cheating Medicare out of more than half a billion dollars, is now being sued by small hospitals including one from Maine that say the fraud made them pay more into the federal health-insurance program.

The named plaintiffs are Longmont United Hospital, in Longmont, Colo., and Maine Coast Memorial Hospital in Ellsworth, Maine.

The Saint Barnabas Health Care System, which operates nine hospitals and a behavioral treatment center in New Jersey, denied wrongdoing and said it would defend itself against the lawsuit.

“We believe these parties are attempting to capitalize on the recent settlement with the government and their actions are not in the best interest of providing quality health care services,” spokesman Michael Slusarz said Wednesday.

The lawsuit was filed June 22 in U.S. District Court in Newark. The week before, federal prosecutors in Newark announced the civil settlement with West Orange-based Saint Barnabas regarding a Medicare program designed to increase reimbursements to hospitals that care for people with medical complications.

Prosecutors said that from October 1995 to August 2003, Saint Barnabas hospitals inflated charges for inpatient and outpatient care under the Medicare program. Saint Barnabas did not admit wrongdoing in the settlement, but accepted an outside monitor to supervise its Medicare billings for the next six years.

The lawsuit seeks class-action status for perhaps thousands of hospitals that claim they lost $514 million because of actions by Saint Barnabas.

The Saint Barnabas health system operates Saint Barnabas Behavioral Health Center in Toms River and nine hospitals: Saint Barnabas in Livingston; Clara Maass, with campuses in Belleville and Kearny; Newark Beth Israel Medical Center; Children’s Hospital in Newark; Union Hospital; Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch; Kimball Medical Center in Lakewood; Community Medical Center in Toms River.