Introduction

Mintz Levin’s Health Care Fraud Enforcement Defense group has published a series of “Year in Review” articles discussing its observations about health care fraud enforcement trends in 2011 and its opinions as to what these trends might mean for 2012. This article, the next installment of our ongoing series, focuses on health care enforcement activities in the first quarter of 2012.

Federal and state enforcement authorities have committed significant resources to health care enforcement initiatives and strategies so far in 2012. For example, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) held a Health Care Fraud Prevention Summit in Chicago, Illinois, on April 4, 2012. Speaking at the summit, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius reported on the federal government’s successes in combating health care fraud since 2010...