‘Qui Tam Whistleblower’ Category

An Intro to Whistleblower Laws and Why Trial Lawyers Should be Paying Attention

In 2010 Congress passed The SEC whistleblower provisions of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, 15 U.S.C. §78u-6 et seq., providing bounties of 10% to 30% of the government’s recovery to whistleblowers whose complaints to the SEC about securities fraud...

September 3, 2012 — Dentist Kristi Ayn Liebau, formerly practicing in Pennsylvania and now living in Texas, has been charged with making false claims against the Medicaid program. Federal investigators first noticed a potential problem when Dr. Liebau billed Medicaid for repairs to six teeth for a single, very young patient. In fact, federal investigators discovered that those particular...

August 31, 2012 — In 2010, the Small Smiles dental chain, owned by Church Street Health Management, settled government claims of dental Medicaid fraud for $24 million. Of that total settlement, $3.45 million went to the state of New York. The legal problems were not over for Small Smiles clinics in New York, however.

August 28, 2012 — The House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee has been looking at the problem of Medicaid fraud involving orthodontic services in Texas, reports Austin’s KVUE.com and North Texas’ WFAA.com. As Rep. Trey Gowdy said, “It took a reporter to unlock the mystery that Texas is spending more on braces than the rest of the country put...

August 20, 2012 — What could be better than having a dentist come to your child’s school and give them a free evaluation? Maybe it’s hard to get to a community dentist, one less thing to take care of on your own and the checkup is free. And how nice and comforting it is when the dentists coming to take care of your child is part of something called Big Smiles mobile dental...

Americans consistently rank physicians as among the most trusted professionals. Much of that trust is well earned and arises, in part, from the public perception that a doctor’s judgment is free of corrupting financial influences. But that confidence has been increasingly compromised by financial incentives that pharmaceutical and medical device companies have given to physicians. Ask...

The United States has reached a settlement in a False Claims Act/whistleblower suit against Altus Healthcare & Hospice Inc. — now known as AHH Historic Inc. — of Atlanta, Georgia. Altus has agreed to pay $555,572 to settle False Claims Act allegations that the hospice provider submitted fraudulent claims to Medicaid and Medicare for inpatient hospice services, according to an article...

July 16, 2012 — An Oklahoma City dentist has pleaded guilty in federal court to charges of Medicaid fraud, reports the FBI website. Robin Lockwood, 44-years-old, entered the guilty plea earlier in July, according to U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma, Sanford Coats. The dentist is expected to be sentenced in around 90 days. The charges of which Lockwood was accused could...

July 12, 2012 — The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged Russell Wasendorf, CEO of Peregrine Financial Group Inc., with orchestrating a long-term SEC fraud scheme. Mr. Wasendorf is accused of making false statements to federal regulators as part of a securities fraud scheme that went on for years. When Mr. Wasendorf recently tried to commit suicide, he left a note detailing...

July 2012 — For over ten years, private equity investors have had their fingers in the nation’s dentistry pie, investing in at least two dozen dental management organizations – companies that profit by purchasing, consolidating, marketing and managing a host of dental practices in several cities or states. What’s...