Designed for busy in-house counsel and compliance professionals, this newsletter seeks to bring you up to speed on key federal and state False Claims Act (FCA) developments, with links to primary resources. Each quarter, we...more
On October 15, Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown announced that his office reached a $27 million settlement with Precision Toxicology to resolve allegations that it submitted false claims to government health...more
As we detailed in a previous blog, on October 3, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) published a strategic plan to “safeguard[] the integrity of HHS grants and contracts.” The...more
Owner of Telemedicine Companies Settles $110 Million Health Care Fraud Claim - Steven Richardson, the owner of telemedicine companies Expansion Media, LLC and Hybrid Management Group LLC, agreed to settle allegations that...more
H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute Hospital Inc. in Tampa, Florida, has agreed to pay $19.564 million to settle false claims allegations over claims submitted to federal health care programs for items and...more
The following is a summary of selected federal Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General (OIG) reports of fraud and abuse enforcement activity across the country. The enforcement actions reported...more
In a climate of shrinking margins, diminishing reimbursement, and frequent denials, healthcare organizations may make efforts to increase the volume of services they provide, especially those that are more profitable. Of...more
The Justice Department is continuing to use criminal enforcement as an important tool in the fight against healthcare fraud. While the False Claims Act continues its important place in the fight against healthcare fraud, DOJ...more
If our most recent Fraud Week post (NY Chiropractor Billed for Non-Existent Acupuncture Services) didn’t already drive home the point, it is worth emphasizing that billing insurers for items or services that weren’t actually...more
As part of its ongoing effort to crack down on health care-related COVID-19 fraud, the U.S. Justice Department has launched a nationwide coordinated law enforcement action that recently led to criminal charges against 21...more
Can a 40-year-old fraud and abuse law that compared to many others is relatively straightforward still get providers into trouble? Answer: You bet! In fact, in the first quarter of 2022 alone, the U.S. Attorney for the...more
On February 1, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the second-largest annual total recoveries in the history of the False Claims Act (FCA)—$5.6 billion—for FY 2021 (October 2020 – September 2021)...more
Over the past year, the federal government has taken concrete steps to fulfill its promise of a heightened commitment to investigating and enforcing health care fraud within the Medicare Advantage program (Medicare Part C). ...more
On September 13, 2021, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) intervened in a False Claims Act (“FCA”) suit alleging that a health insurer defrauded the government by submitting false patient data to wrongfully inflate payments...more
A recent split decision from the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit strengthens an argument many defendants of False Claims Act ("FCA") cases have been advancing for years: the violation of an ambiguous...more
A False Claims Act case can easily turn into a criminal prosecution. The Federal Bureau of Investigation often initiates criminal investigations as part of its commitment to reducing health care fraud....more
At the American Health Law Association’s Annual Meeting this week, Michael Granston, deputy assistant attorney general for the Department of Justice’s (“DOJ”) commercial litigation branch, made one thing very clear—health...more
Last week, in light of the Department of Justice’s newly-formed COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force, we cautioned that COVID-related prosecutions were likely imminent. And on the heels of this DOJ task force, we are already...more
Zone Program Integrity Contractors (ZPICs) and Unified Program Integrity Contractors (UPICs) are federal contractors who work under the direction of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to uncover fraudulent...more
The owner of Brooklyn Chemists in Gravesend, Brooklyn and Lucky Care Pharmacy in Flushing, Queens was recently indicted on charges of conspiracy to commit health care fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States by paying...more
DOJ announced a False Claims Act settlement with Universal Health (“UHS”) and related companies for $122 million for billing for medically unnecessary inpatient behavioral health services, failing to provide adequate services...more
On Thursday, AseraCare, a national hospice care provider, announced that it had settled a long-standing Medicare billing dispute with the DOJ, a case that has garnered nationwide attention in healthcare since 2008. At issue...more
In an action especially significant to hospice providers but also other healthcare providers regarding the determinations of medical necessity for Medicare billing purposes, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and AseraCare...more
Participating in clinical trials can leave health care providers vulnerable to false claims liability if Medicare rules are not closely followed. This publication reviews settlements involving clinical trials, provides an...more
Kickback Allegations Settled for $20.25 Million - Sanford Health, Sanford Medical Center, and Sanford Clinic (collectively, Sanford), a South Dakota health system, will pay $20.25 million to settle allegations that they...more