The official founding of a Senate Whistleblower Protection Caucus was announced on February 25, 2015 by Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA).
Medicare, Part D began in 2006 as a program to get much needed medication to more than 36 million senior citizens and people with disabilities. Billions of needless expense has been added to the program due to lack of oversight and doctors prescribing name brand medications instead of generics.
The Justice Department announced that it has reached a $1.25 million settlement with ev3, a medical device manufacturer base in in Minnesota. Ev3 formerly was known as Fox Hollow Technologies. A lawsuit filed under the whistleblower provision of the False Claims Act alleges that between 2006-2007, Fox Hollow induced 12 hospitals in 9 states to admit patients who were undergoing elective atherectomy procedures.
United States ex rel. Carroll v. Adventist Health Systems, et al., Case No. CV-10-4925 DMR
A settlement in the amount of $2,250,000, payable by St. Helena Hospital, to the United States, stems from allegations that it submitted false claims to Medicare for certain cardiac procedures and related inpatient submissions.
Even as the abuse of prescription drugs has escalated and the national crackdown on it has occurred, new data suggests that doctors are prescribing even larger numbers of prescriptions for the most potent controlled substances to Medicare patients.
North Atlantic Medical Services Inc. (NAMS), a medical device company that provides equipment and services for treatment of respiratory ailments, reached an agreement to pay $852,378 to resolve allegations that it violated the False Claims Act. The Department of Justice announced that NAMS agreed to pay this settlement due to submitting claims to Medicare and Medicaid for services provided by unlicensed personnel.
On behalf of their client Michael Epp, the law firms Morgan Verkamp LLC (Cincinnati) and Pietragallo Gordon Alfano Bosick & Raspanti, LLP (Philadelphia) note the settlement of claims initiated by Mr. Epp alleging fraud on the part of Supreme Foodservice, the “prime vendor” of food and related items to the Department of Defense and coalition troops in Afghanistan from 2005 until at least 2009.
Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Judiciary Committee Chairman, reported that the Department of Justice recovered a record-breaking $24 billion under the False Claims Act in 2014 for civil and criminal penalties. The majority of the penalties were related to the financial crisis that started in 2014 and included financial institutions such as Citibank and JP Morgan.
A district court in the Eastern District of Tennessee recently upheld that utilization of statistical sampling to establish liability in false claims cases.
As Attorney General Eric Holder prepares to step down, his success with False Claims Act cases is being highlighted by the Department of Justice. Amongst his greatest legacy is the creating Heath Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Team (“HEAT”) in 2009. Since its inception in 2009, the HEAT team has conducted six nationwide enforcement actions resulting in charges against 600 individuals and a financial recovery nearing $2 billion.
If you are aware of any person, corporation or entity that you think may be violating the Federal False Claims Act or a State False Claims Act, contact us today.