The Office of Inspector General (OIG) of the Department of Health & Human Services has announced that it expects to recover approximately $6.9 billion in fiscal year 2012. Of this amount, $923.8 million is attributable to audit receivables and $6 billion to investigative receivables. OIG also reported that approximately $8.
On November 27, 2012, President Obama signed the Whistleblower Protection and Enhancement Act, a bill which supporters had been attempting to get passed for more than a decade. The statute increases the protections already in place for federal employees who witness waste, fraud or abuse within the federal government.
The United States Department of Justice has announced that Baylor University Medical Center, Baylor Health Care System and HealthTexas Provider Network (collectively referred to as “Baylor”) have agreed to pay $907,355 to revolve charges that they submitted false claims to Medicare, the Civilian Health and Medical Program of the Uniformed Services and the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program.
Hospices provide individuals who decide not to seek a cure for their medical conditions with treatments aimed at reducing the severity of their symptoms. Medicare beneficiaries are entitled to receive hospice care if they have been diagnosed with six months or less to live.
Jason Sobek, a former admissions supervisor at Education Management Corporation (“EDMC”), the country’s second-largest operator of for-profit colleges, has filed a lawsuit charging that EDMC’s marketing materials deceived prospective students by falsely inflating job placement statistics. In an interview with ABC News, Mr.
Recent changes to the IRS Whistleblower program are intended to encourage taxpayers to expose tax fraud. The ruling in a recent case, however, revealed the intent of both the IRS and the TAX Court to adhere to existing law. In the matter of Cohen v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue 139 T.C.
Pfizer Inc.’s Wyeth Unit plans to plead guilty to a misdemeanor “misbranding” offense under federal law as part of a $491 million settlement of a government investigation of the company’s promotion of the organ-transplant drug Rapamune. The DOJ has been investigating allegation that Wyeth promoted Rapmune for unauthorized uses and paid kickbacks to doctors.
PHILADELPHIA, PA – Michael A. Morse, a partner in the law firm of Pietragallo Gordon Alfano Bosick and Raspanti, LLP, presented at the Thirteenth Annual Pharmaceutical Regulatory and Compliance Congress and Best Practices Forum in Washington, DC on November 6, 2012.
The Swiss-based pharmaceutical giant Novartis will pay Texas $19.9 million to settle allegations that it violated the False Claims Act. The whistleblower in this case, Donald Galmines, is a former Novartis marketing representative. Galmines’s suit alleges that the pharmaceutical manufacturer falsely marketed its drug, Elidel, which has been approved by the FDA for use on patients ages two and up who suffer from eczema and who were not seeing results from the “first-line” treatment options.
Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Inc., a Connecticut based pharmaceutical manufacturer, has reached an agreement with the US Government to pay $95 million to resolve allegations relating to the unlawful marketing of three different drugs.
Aggrenox, a stroke-prevention drug, Combivent, a COPD drug and Micardis, a hypertension drug, were all involved in the settlement which alleged that Boehringer improperly marketed these drugs thus causing false claims to be submitted to the government’s health care programs.
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.