No Delay for Hospices: October 1st Brings New Election and Addendum Requirements
• Escobar’s two-part implied false certification test is mandatory in the 9th Circuit. • Though couched as adopting the Escobar standard, the 9th Circuit panel’s decision may actually undermine Escobar’s overarching...more
Unless and until the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, “en banc, interprets Escobar differently,” a Ninth Circuit panel, relying on past case law, has ruled that relators seeking to establish False Claims Act...more
Following our inaugural installment of the Health Care Enforcement Quarterly Roundup, we are pleased to be back this quarter with another overview of key enforcement trends in the health care industry. In this issue, we...more
A United States District Court (Eastern District-Pennsylvania) (“Court”) addressed a qui tam action filed by Gary Cressman (“Cressman”) under the federal False Claims Act (“FCA”) in connection with an alleged environmental...more
Summer is almost here. For some, that means planning vacations to the beach, hitting the gym to shed that winter weight, or perhaps hitting the golf course—but for us at the Sheppard Mullin Healthcare Law Blog and the False...more
Before Escobar, some courts held that implied certification cases could survive a motion to dismiss only if the statute, regulation, or contractual provision that was allegedly violated was a “condition of payment,” as...more
The Situation: The False Claims Act imposes civil liability on any person or entity that "knowingly presents, or causes to be presented" to the U.S. government "a false or fraudulent claim for payment or approval." The...more
The ruling in Universal Health Services, Inc. v. Escobar "rejects a system of government traps, zaps, and zingers that permits the government to retain the benefit of a substantially conforming good or service but to recover...more
If the government does not take action and continues to pay for Medicare/Medicaid claims after it learns of non-compliance related to the claims, is the non-compliance material to the government’s decision to pay? This is a...more
The United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida vacated a large jury verdict in a False Claims Act case against the owners and operators of nursing homes because the evidence did not satisfy the...more
The False Claims Act (FCA), initially enacted in 1863 during the Civil War, was sponsored by the Lincoln administration to curtail the rampant fraud and excessive profiteering being perpetuated by government contractors, who,...more
It has been one year since the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Universal Health Services v. United States ex rel. Escobar, which resolved a circuit split as to the validity of the implied false certification theory...more
The FCA continues to be the federal government’s primary civil enforcement tool for investigating allegations that healthcare providers or government contractors defrauded the federal government. In the coming weeks, we will...more
Last year, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court decided Universal Health Services, Inc. v. United States ex rel. Escobar (Escobar), 136 S.Ct. 1989 (2016), creating important implications for Federal False Claims Act (FCA) cases...more
The Supreme Court recently allowed liability through the implied certification theory of the False Claims Act (FCA), which was raised and upheld in Universal Health Services, Inc. v. United States ex rel. Escobar. The...more
In June, the Supreme Court issued Universal Health Services, Inc. v. U.S. ex rel. Escobar, a landmark opinion in which the Supreme Court addressed the standard for pleading materiality in FCA implied certification cases. The...more
In June, I published a blog article on a decision of the United States Supreme Court that appeared to change the law applicable to “false certification” in the 7th Judicial Circuit Circuit. The Supreme Court decision in...more
The Supreme Court decided Universal Health Services v. U.S. ex rel. Escobar on June 16, 2016 in which it ruled the implied false certification theory, previously recognized in several circuits, can form the basis for False...more
On June 16, 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the matter of Universal Health Services, Inc. v. United States ex rel. Escobar, 136 S. Ct. 1989 (2016), changing the legal landscape for False Claims Act qui tam claims...more
In a unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court recently upheld the “implied certification” theory of liability under the False Claims Act, while emphasizing that only material misrepresentations are actionable. In this...more
The Supreme Court has made it clear that, even at the pleadings stage, relators (or the government) must plead facts to support materiality with plausibility and particularity. For False Claims Act (FCA) defendants who...more
The Supreme Court’s decision in the closely watched case of Universal Health Services, Inc. v. United States ex rel. Escobar, decided on June 16, 2016, provides a long-awaited interpretation of the False Claims Act (“FCA”)...more
In a recent and highly anticipated opinion that will significantly affect healthcare providers and other government contractors, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the “implied false certification theory” is a...more
On June 16, 2016, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision in Universal Health Services, Inc. v. United States ex rel. Escobar upholding the “implied certification” theory of liability under the False Claims Act (“FCA”)...more
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court issued summary dispositions vacating the judgments in three cases brought under the False Claims Act (“FCA”). The Court remanded the cases back to their respective circuit courts for...more