2014 Whistleblower Recoveries

In 2014, the total whistleblower recoveries amounted to just shy of $3 billion, $2.2 billion (73 percent) of which were in the health care arena.

When the Department of Justice announces a False Claims Act recovery, they put the total recovery into the headline (the total amount that the fraudster is paying as a result of the FCA action), this includes state Medicaid recoveries and Criminal penalties triggered by FCA investigations.  However, when the DoJ announces their recoveries at the end of the year they leave the state and criminal recoveries off the table.

An example may be seen in the Johnson & Johnson matter announced in November 2013.  The Department of Justice initial press release states that $2.2 billion was recovered in this matter, but nearly $500 million of the $2.2 billion was a criminal penalty and over $500 million went to states.  Half of the total recovered is actually counted in the federal FCA statistics.

Ultimately, there is no evidence that the total fraud recoveries in the health care arena are going down.  FCA actions were very high in 2014, almost entirely due to non-qui tam banking cased that are listed in the non-HHD and non-DOD part of the report.  The total FCA number jumped from $422 million (FY 2013) to $3.3 billion (FY 2014), of which $2.6 billion was brought in from non-qui tam cases.