Category: Federal False Claims Act
At a panel on Thursday, June 3, 2010, the Deputy Director of the Commercial Litigation Branch of the Department of Justice’s Civil Division, Michael Granston, announced that he expected Congress to enact changes to the Program Fraud Civil Remedies Act of 1986. Also known as the “mini False Claims Act,” the PFCRA enables the government to recover up to $150,000 in administrative proceedings and permit a person to be made to pay up to $5,000 per claim and double the amount falsely claimed.
On Thursday, June 3, 2010, Senior U.S. District Judge Matthew J. Perry, Jr., ruled that Tuomey Healthcare System, based in Sumter, South Carolina, must pay $44,888,651 plus interest received from Medicare under physician contracts in violation of the Stark Law. This ruling from Judge Perry follows the March 29 jury verdict where a federal jury found that the hospital violated the Stark Law,
On Friday, June 4, 2010, the Department of Justice announced that three entities, St. Jude Medical, Inc., a heart device manufacturer; Parma Community General Hospital; and Norton Healthcare will pay the United States $3,898,300 in response to allegations that St. Jude paid illegal kickbacks to two hospitals to secure heart-device business.
On May 24, 2010, an Irvine physician, Xinming Fu, was sentenced for his role in a scheme which bilked Medicare out of $15 million in unnecessary respiratory treatments which were not performed in accordance with the Medicare rules or not performed at all. Dr. Fu, who was sentenced to thirty (30) months in federal prison,
On March 26, 2010, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that Bell Helicopter Textron, Inc. (“Bell”) will pay the United States an additional $3,718,770 to resolve several claims arising from cost charging practices on its contracts with the U.S. government. This additional amount brings the total money to be paid by Bell to $16,570,018.
Ceradyne, Inc., a subcontractor for Sikorsky Aircraft, agreed to pay the federal government $1.2 million to settle a False Claims Act suit for failing to ballistically test armor plating installed near the pilot and co-pilot in Black Hawk helicopters. Ceradyne’s settlement comes a little over a year after Sikorsky itself paid $2.9 million to resolve False Claims Act allegations stemming from the same inadequate armor plating.
Christiana Care Health System (CCHS) has agreed to pay the United States and the State of Delaware $3.3 Million to settle a whistleblower lawsuit that alleged that CCHS paid kickbacks to, and entered into improper self-referral relationships, with a physicians’ practice located in New Castle, Delaware.
The Houston Independent School District has agreed to relinquish millions of dollars in requests for federal funds and to pay a total of $850,000 as part of a civil settlement relating to allegations that the school district violated the False Claims Act in connection with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) E-Rate Program, the Justice Department recently announced.
The United States and the State of New York have entered into settlement agreements with three home health agencies to resolve allegations that the agencies submitted false claims to the New York Medicaid and Medicare Programs.
The New York Medicaid Program provides coverage for home health aides only if those aides have valid certificates showing that they received proper training.
St. John’s Health System, headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma, has agreed to pay the United States $13,229,348.88 to settle allegations that it submitted claims to Medicare and Medicaid that were tainted by the hospital’s financial relationships with referring physicians.
Federal law prohibits health care providers like St. John’s from billing the federal healthcare program for referrals from doctors with whom the providers have a financial relationship,
