News

Billing Medicaid for Services Provided as Part of a Kickback Scheme Violates the False Claims Act

June 28, 2013 — Since the Anti-Kickback Statute was amended in 2010, violations of this rule automatically breach the federal False Claims Act. The qui tam language of the Act allows health care employees who discover illegal kickback scams to file suit against...

June 27, 2013 — Unethical securities investment firms and their traders may be tempted to use their position illegally to make a personal profit. But financial fraud is a serious crime. To help fight fraud in the securities industry, the U.S. Congress set up a whistleblower program as part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act) of 2010....

June 27, 2013 — Every year, the U.S. Justice Department relies on the federal False Claims Act to recover millions of tax dollars lost to Medicaid fraud. The qui tam provisions of the anti-fraud statute permit health care workers who discover misreporting and overbilling to Medicaid to file suit against the unethical health care providers. The whistleblowers then keep a percentage of the...

June 26, 2013 — Government contractors that file false claims with the government, pretending to be something they are not, violate the federal False Claims Act. The qui tam provisions of the anti-fraud statute reward whistleblowers who are brave enough to take steps to stop the fraud. The federal False Claims Act enables an informant to file a lawsuit on the government’s behalf and...

June 25, 2013 — The government’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force includes numerous federal agencies and nearly a hundred U.S. attorneys’ offices in addition to other partners on the state and local level. In just the last few years, the dedicated work of the Task Force has helped the Justice Department to bring almost 10,000 financial fraud cases to justice. The cases involved a...

June 24, 2013 — The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) whistleblower program put into place by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act) of 2010 gives whistleblowers a convenient way to notify the government about fraud in the securities industry. Investment and brokerage firm insiders who become aware of schemes to defraud investors can use the...

June 21, 2013 — When institutions of higher learning try to cheat the government by seeking federal funding for which the schools are not entitled, they hurt taxpayers, students and school employees. Administrators and recruiters may feel pressured to lie to the government about how many students they teach, or the qualifications of the students, or the percentage of federal funding the...

June 20, 2013 — It is a violation of the federal False Claims Act for a drug manufacturer to cause claims to be submitted to Medicare for drugs that have not been approved by the FDA for the purpose for which the pharmaceuticals were prescribed. Federally funded healthcare programs cannot afford to pay for medications that may not even be useful to patients, or worse, may actually harm...

June 19, 2013 — Every year, the U.S. Justice Department employs the federal False Claims Act to recover millions of tax dollars stolen from the government through Medicare fraud. The qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act allow health care workers who discover Medicare overbillings to bring a lawsuit against the unethical health care providers involved and retain a percentage of any...