The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Connecticut recently announced that Supportive Care Holdings, LLC and its related companies agreed to pay the federal government nearly $4,600,000 to resolve allegations of...more
DOJ Announces Agreement With Rite Aid to Settle Allegations of Violating the FCA and CSA in Relation to Opioid Dispensing - On July 10, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that Rite Aid Corporation and 10 of its...more
The Department of Justice has been clamping down on false certifications in the System for Award Management (“SAM”), in government contracts, and on invoice submissions. New laws are being created, new frameworks are being...more
In May, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and U.S. Attorneys’ Offices announced several significant False Claims Act (FCA) settlements resolving qui tam whistleblower lawsuits. Under the FCA’s qui tam provisions, a...more
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan announced on May 8 that Michigan Ear Care PLLC and James Aronovitz, D.O. agreed to pay over $2 million to resolve allegations that they submitted false claims to...more
“Incident to” billing is widely practiced, and its regulations are generally well-known. But one Arizona physician recently found himself pleading guilty in federal court on April 3, 2024, to a criminal healthcare fraud...more
The owner of Bergen Alliance Counseling Services in Paramus, New Jersey pleaded guilty to a run-of-the-mill healthcare fraud scheme in District Court in Newark on March 19. Maria Cosentino of Garfield, a licensed clinical...more
A New York acupuncturist recently admitted to billing Amtrak’s health care benefit plan for services that were never provided and were medically unnecessary. From January 2019 through June 2022, Punson Figueroa of Long Island...more
The following is a summary of selected federal Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General (OIG) reports of fraud and abuse enforcement activity across the country. The enforcement actions reported...more
The U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced its False Claims Act (“FCA”) enforcement statistics for FY 2023 and identified key priorities for FCA enforcement in 2024 and beyond. The DOJ continues to pursue FCA...more
Is Medicare Advantage really a Disadvantage for seniors and taxpayers? Our nation is graying rapidly. Every day, 10,000 baby boomers, members of one of the largest generations in U.S. history, hit the traditional...more
Whistleblower Watch is a comprehensive source for all False Claims Act (FCA) news and information. Every quarter, Cozen O’Connor will provide in-house counsel and compliance professionals with a summary of the most notable...more
Owner of Telemedicine Companies Settles $110 Million Health Care Fraud Claim - Steven Richardson, the owner of telemedicine companies Expansion Media, LLC and Hybrid Management Group LLC, agreed to settle allegations that...more
H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute Hospital Inc. in Tampa, Florida, has agreed to pay $19.564 million to settle false claims allegations over claims submitted to federal health care programs for items and...more
Former Healthcare Executives Convicted for Health Insurance Policy Fraud Scheme - Steven Dorfman, the former chief executive officer and owner of the Florida-based healthcare company Simple Health, and John Sand, a former...more
A Long Island man who impersonated the general counsel of the NFL and an NBA player as part of his scheme for multiple frauds will now serve jail time. Sentenced in federal court in Central Islip, Matthew James used...more
In 2022, the United States experienced 18 separate weather and climate disasters costing at least one billion dollars according to NOAA. In 2023, that number rose to 28 separate billion dollar weather events. The frequency...more
Here are curated AG and federal regulatory news stories highlighting key areas in which state and federal regulators’ decisions are having an impact across the US: •Republican AGs Express Concern over Potential for...more
On December 19, Michael Lonski, a Greenwich psychologist, was sentenced to a 27-month prison term and three more years of supervised release for a scheme to defraud Medicaid. Lonski submitted over 80,000 claims from 2014 to...more
The U.S. Department of Justice recently announced that Silver Lake Hospital, a long-term care hospital in Newark, New Jersey, and some of its investors agreed to pay $30.6 million to settle claims that they violated the False...more
A recent article in Law360 sparked a vigorous conversation among members of Pietragallo’s white collar practice group about the current state of the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) evolving emphasis on individual...more
As previously reported in this post, criminal trials premised on upcoding evaluation and management (E/M) service codes are extremely rare. The Justice Department took that rare step in Maryland in connection with a practice...more
Health Care Network Settles False Claims Act Allegations for $345 Million - Community Health Network Inc. (CHN) has agreed to pay $345,000,000 to settle allegations that it violated the False Claims Act (FCA) for knowingly...more
On December 14, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and other agencies announced the indictment of Niranjan Mittal, a Brooklyn cardiologist, on multiple fraud charges. Mittal allegedly fabricated...more