Last month, the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey held that a private company, Allstate Insurance Company, could proceed with its whistleblower action against a clinical laboratory, Phoenix Toxicology and Lab...more
This past summer, in United States v. Booker, a North Carolina district court ruled against a challenge to the constitutionality of Congress’s delegation of authority to promulgate safe harbors to the Anti-Kickback Statue...more
In United States v. Regeneron, the District of Massachusetts Court recently joined the Sixth and Eighth Circuits in requiring the government to show a direct tie between kickbacks and referrals that proximately caused claims...more
A large damage award serves as a significant reminder to file an appearance in a False Claims Act (FCA) case.
In late August of 2022, the Government filed suit against AZ Diabetic and the owner, Hisham Zaghal (Zaghal),...more
Recently, two ophthalmology practice groups — Kleiman Evangelista Eye Centers of Texas (KEEC) and SouthEast Eye Specialists, PLLC (SEES) — reached large settlements with the U.S. government over allegations that the groups’...more
On Sept. 13, 2023, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas announced a settlement with Oliver Street Dermatology Management LLC. Oliver Street agreed to pay the United States $8.892 million to resolve...more
On March 29, 2023, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan granted the parties’ joint stipulation for dismissal in U.S. ex. rel. Godsholl v. Covenant Healthcare, following three settlements of the...more
In U.S. v. Genesis Global Healthcare, 2023 WL 3656925 (S.D. Ga. May 25, 2023), a Georgia district court denied three (3) Motions to Dismiss the Second Amended Complaint filed in a qui tam action brought by relators under the...more
On June 1, 2023, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in favor of whistleblower plaintiffs (referred to as “relators”) in consolidated False Claims Act (“FCA”) cases in a decision that clarified the application of the FCA’s...more
The Office of Inspector General (OIG) has announced that it is expanding the topics it considers for new Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) submitted by healthcare stakeholders. OIG will now answer general questions about the...more
An Ohio Court of Appeals recently weighed in on the proper protocols one must take in order to successfully assert one’s Fifth Amendment Constitutional Right against self-incrimination in relation to a discovery request in a...more
The U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland recently weighed in on the appropriate causation standard when evaluating whether a claim “result[s] from” a violation of the Anti-Kickback Statute sufficient to constitute...more
Last month, the Central District of California granted the government’s affirmative motion for partial summary judgment in U.S. v. Reliance Medical Sys., 2022 WL 524062 (C.D. Cal. Feb. 2, 2022). The Reliance Medical case...more
On March 18, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and the Connecticut Attorney General announced that a Connecticut eye care practice and its owners had agreed to pay $192,699 to resolve allegations that the practice improperly...more
The Western District of New York recently allowed the government to intervene in an FCA action brought months after the government’s initial notice of declination and more than seven years after the government initiated its...more
In Stop Illinois Health Care Fraud, LLC v. Sayeed, No. 12-CV-09306, 2021 WL 2331338 (N.D. Ill. June 8, 2021), an Illinois district court issued an order after a recent bench trial finding that the defendants violated the...more
In U.S. ex rel. Freedman v. Bayada Home Health Care, Inc., No. 3:19-cv-18753-FLW-ZNQ, 2021 WL 1904735 (D.N.J. May 12, 2021), a New Jersey District Court found that the relator failed to plead a cognizable theory of liability...more
In United States ex rel. Roshan v. E. Tex. Med. Ctr., 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 252092, 2020 WL 8918651 (E.D. Tex. (Nov. 24, 2020)), a Texas federal court partially dismissed a relator’s claim alleging the defendants engaged in...more
In U.S. ex rel. Sonyika v. ApolloMD, Inc. et al., 2021 WL 1222379 (N.D. Ga. Mar. 31, 2021), a Georgia federal court allowed a relator’s Amended Complaint alleging a fraudulent scheme involving improper billing for services...more
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently announced 2020 settlements concerning past violation or potential violations of the physician self-referral law (the Stark Law) and the number and value of such...more
In a recent opinion from the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, the court analyzed several alleged points of error from a criminal jury trial about a healthcare kickback scheme. See United States v....more
After granting defendants’ motion to dismiss and dismissing plaintiff’s action with prejudice, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina recently denied relator’s motion to alter or amend the judgment...more
The U.S. Fifth Circuit recently reversed a former home health agency employee’s conviction and vacated his sentence related to three counts of healthcare fraud and abuse. Jonathan Nora was convicted by the trial court of...more
In a recent opinion from the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, the court analyzed the interplay between the False Claims Act and the Anti-Kickback Statute. See United States ex rel. Fesenmaier v....more
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced charges this month against a Michigan woman, Amina Abbas, for embezzling government property. This indictment is the first in the nation related to the CARES Act public health...more