Welcome to the Summer 2024 issue of “FCA Enforcement & Compliance Digest,” our quarterly newsletter in which we compile essential updates on False Claims Act (FCA) enforcement trends, litigation, agency guidance, and...more
Chicago Laboratory Owner Charged with Defrauding Medicare in $60 Million COVID-19 Test Kit Scheme - The Chicago-based owner of two laboratories, Zoom Labs Inc. and Western Labs Co., has been charged with health care fraud...more
Telemedicine companies are supposed to facilitate medically necessary services to beneficiaries over the telephone via licensed medical professionals. In reality, however, many of these “telemedicine companies” are...more
Georgia Laboratory Owner Pleads Guilty to Felony Anti-Kickback Statute Violations - On February 28, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the guilty plea of Andrew Maloney, who, along with his clinical laboratory...more
Hospital Executive and Three Physicians to Pay More Than $880,000 to Resolve Kickback Allegations - On Monday, December 4, 2023, a Lexington, Texas, hospital executive and three health care providers agreed to pay more...more
Three Men Sentenced for $54 Million TRICARE Fraud Scheme - Three men were sentenced in connection with a $54 million bribery and kickback scheme involving TRICARE, a federal program that provides health insurance benefits...more
Medical Marketer Convicted of $55 Million Fraud Scheme - Late last week, a federal jury in the Northern District of Texas convicted Quintan Cockerell for his role in a $55 million fraud conspiracy involving TRICARE, a...more
DOJ’s First Criminal Securities Fraud Prosecution Related to COVID-19 Results in Eight-Year Sentence - Mark Schena, the former president of Arrayit Corporation, a Silicon Valley-based medical technology company, was...more
Designed for busy in-house counsel and compliance professionals, this newsletter seeks to bring you up to speed on key federal and state False Claims Act (FCA) developments, with links to primary resources. Each quarter, we...more
This issue of McDermott’s Healthcare Regulatory Check-Up highlights significant regulatory activity for April 2023. We discuss several criminal and civil enforcement actions related to the Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS) and the...more
On March 29, 2023, the Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a press release announcing three related civil settlements totaling over $69 million with Covenant Healthcare System and two physicians—Dr. Mark Adams, a neurosurgeon,...more
The Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC) Health Care Subgroup recently published an expansive report that highlighted the sheer volume of expanded access to and use of telehealth services in certain federal...more
On December 1, 2022, the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC) Health Care Subgroup published a report about the use of telehealth in selected health care programs across six federal agencies during the first year...more
On October 18, 2022, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced two settlements with CHC Holdings, LLC, an Oklahoma limited liability company doing business as Carter Healthcare (Carter), and two former senior corporate...more
Claims adjusters are frequently warned to identify and resolve Medicare and Employee Retirement Income Security Act (“ERISA”) liens before finalizing settlements in personal injury claims. But there is another federal law...more
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on October 18 that Oklahoma-based Carter Healthcare LLC and its affiliates, plus two executives, agreed to pay a total of over $30 million to resolve two separate qui tam cases....more
The Department of Justice (“DOJ”) recently announced two settlement agreements, both involving durable medical equipment (“DME”) companies, following allegations that the companies had violated the Anti-Kickback...more
This issue of McDermott’s Healthcare Regulatory Check-Up highlights significant regulatory activity between August 21 and September 20, 2022, including a guilty plea from a telemedicine physician who wrote prescriptions for...more
The Department of Justice announced in a February 1, 2022 press release (Press Release) that it obtained more than $5.6 billion in settlements and judgments from civil cases involving fraud and false claims in the fiscal year...more
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that Flower Mound Hospital Partners LLC, a partially physician-owned hospital in Flower Mound, Texas, agreed to pay $18.2 million to settle its alleged violations of the False...more
DOJ Files Complaint in AWP False Claims Act Suit Against Pharmaceutical Ingredient Seller - On November 8, 2021, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it intervened in a qui tam suit and filed a False Claims Act...more
CEO of Defunct Medical Testing Lab to Pay $1.1 Million to Settle FCA and AKS Case - Jae Lee, the former CEO of defunct Northwest Physicians Laboratory (NWPL), agreed to pay $1.1 million to resolve allegations that he...more
The False Claims Act (“FCA”) is a punitive civil statute that acts as the federal government’s primary tool for combatting fraud in government health care programs, such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Tricare. In fiscal year 2020...more
St. Jude Medical Inc. (“St. Jude”), which was acquired by Abbott Laboratories in 2017, entered into a settlement last week with the United States Department of Justice (“DOJ”) for $27 million to resolve allegations it had...more
A recent health care fraud conspiracy case resulted in federal prison sentences for six participants, serving as a warning to pharmacy owners and their employees. The Case- Mohamed Abdalla is a licensed pharmacist who...more