Category: Healthcare
The office manager of a wheelchair manufacturer pleaded guilty to conspiring with a church pastor that defrauded Medicare of over $6 million. The defendant admitted to submitting false claims for high-end power wheelchair and other medical equipment provided to Medicare beneficiaries that did not need them. The defendant also admitted to destroying documents in an attempt to cover up the fraud.
On February 1, 2011, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a motion indicating its intent to join in a whistleblower suit against Abbott Laboratories, Inc. This False Claims Act case was brought by whistleblowers inside Abbott Laboratories and accuses the company and the subsidiary of legally promoting off-label uses of the seizure drug Depakote for which it was reimbursed by the federal government.
In a January 24, 2011 letter to U.S. Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, representatives from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) and the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) detailed their efforts in combating health care fraud. The letter noted that Fiscal Year 2010 was a banner year during which 931 health care fraud defendants were charged,
The U.S. Department of Justice announced on February 1, 2011 that three companies, CareSource, CareSource Management Group Co., and CareSource USA Holding Co., agreed to pay the United States and the State of Ohio $26 million to resolve allegations that they induced Medicaid to pay for assessments and case managements,
On February 1, 2011, a jury in Travis County, Texas, returned a verdict against drug manufacturer Actavis Mid-Atlantic, LLC, based on allegations that it misrepresented drug prices to the federally-funded Medicaid program. The jury’s finding determined that Actavis and its co-defendant, Actavis Elizabeth, LLC, should pay the state of Texas and the federal government $170.3 million for its fraud against Medicaid.
The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a new program targeting health care fraud called the FDA Pharmaceutical Fraud Pilot Program (PFPP). PFPP was initiated in 2010 and has successfully recovered taxpayer money. Approximately $2.5 billion was attributed to violations of the False Claims Act. PFPP has focused their attention to false marketing schemes,
Cephalon was recently given a rebuke by the Association of British Pharmaceutical Industry (“ABPI”) for providing “inappropriate hospitality” to thirteen healthcare professionals during a convention in Lisbon, Portugal in 2009. The ABPI reacted to an anonymous complaint filed by a perturbed Cephalon employee, who witnessed the company’s largesse in marketing its fentanyl products.
Last week, pharmaceutical manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline announced that it would take a $3.4 billion charge to cover the legal fallout from investigations into its controversial Avandia diabetes pill. In total, Glaxo has taken over $6 billion in charges to cover ongoing legal problems related to Avandia, which was banned in Europe last fall.
On January 18, 2011, the Young Adult Institute (“YAI”) and five of its current and former officers were ordered to pay $18 million in civil damages to settle a lawsuit brought under the False Claims Act. YAI is the largest operator of residential facilities and other programs for developmentally disabled individuals in New York State.
During the fiscal year 2010, the US government was able to recover more than $4 Billion stolen from federal health care programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. Due to the fraud-fighting efforts of the Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Team (HEAT) and Medicare Fraud Strike, this money was returned to the Medicare Health Insurance Trust Fund,
