Healthpoint Ltd. and DFB Pharmaceuticals have agreed to pay up to $48 million to resolve allegations that Healthpoint caused false claims to be submitted to Medicare and Medicaid programs for a non-FDA approved skin ointment, Xenaderm. The U.S. Department of Justice alleges that Healthpoint misrepresented Xenaderm’s regulatory status in its government reports and...
The U.S. Department of Justice announced today that it has secured $4.9 billion in settlements and judgments in civil cases involving fraud against the government in the fiscal year ending September 30, 2012. This figure tops the Justice Department's 2011 recoveries by $1.7 billion. Of the $4.9 billion in fiscal year 2012 recoveries, a record $3.3 billion was recovered in...
President Obama today signed the Whistleblower Protection Enahncement Act into law. The law, which was passed by both houses of Congress by unanimous consent, expands the protections for federal workers to report misconduct, fraud and illegality, expands the penalties imposed for violating whistleblower protections, and establishes a Whistleblower Protection Ombudsmen in...
New York-based Park Avenue Medical Associates, P.C., Park Avenue Health Care Management LLC, and Park Avenue Health Care Management, Inc. (collectively “PAMA”) have agreed to pay $1 million to resolve allegations that the companies knowingly submitted or caused the submission of false claims to Medicare, the U.S. Department of Justice announced last month.
Medicare...
The government will intervene in a whistleblower lawsuit against Florida-based A Plus Home Health Care, Inc. and its owner, Tracy Nemerofsky, the U.S. Department of Justice announced last month. A Plus allegedly offered referring physicians’ spouses sham marketing positions with the company to induce the physicians to refer Medicare patients for its home health...
According to the Corporate Crime Reporter, federal and state whistleblower claims under the False Claims Act resulted in more than $9 billion in recoveries in 2012, more than double the amount in 2011. A single Medicaid HMO case in California was responsible for $300 million of that, according to the article, and of the 30 largest settlements, 28 were whistleblower-...
A CVS subsidiary, RxAmerica, has agreed to a $5 million settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice based on allegations that they defrauded the Medicare prescription drug plan. RxAmerica allegedly received Medicare Part D payments for covered generic prescription medication at prices that were sometimes significantly higher than pricing data the company submitted to...
Yesterday, President Obama issued a Presidential Policy Directive to protect national security and intelligence community whistleblowers from retaliation for reporting violations law, gross waste or mismanagement, and abuse of authority, among other activities.
The Chanler Group, in association with the Hirst Law Group, represents whistleblowers who take action under the False...
The New York Times today ran an article titled "The Price Whistle-Blowers Pay for Secrets," in which lawyers and government officials warn potential whistleblowers of the risks and pitfalls of, well, blowing the whistle. One lawyer is quoted in the article as saying, "You see a high degree of bankruptcies. You may find yourself unemployable. ...
The U.S. Department of Justice celebrated the 25th anniversary of the 1986 amendments to the False Claims Act today. The False Claims Act has been called the single most important tool that American taxpayers have to recover funds when false claims are made to the federal government, including health care fraud, mortgage fraud, and procurement fraud. ...
