2006 » November » Qui Tam 101

A record $3.1 billion was recovered by the Justice Department in FY 2006 which ended on September 30. Prior to this year, the largest recovery was in FY 2003 for a total of $2.2 billion. The largest of FY 2006 recoveries included settlements against Tenet Healthcare Corporation and Boeing Company. “By any measure, it was a remarkable year…recoveries in health care fraud climbed more than a billion dollars over last year…,” said Peter D. Keisler, Assistant Attorney General of the Department of Justice?s Civil Division.

Kickbacks in Medical School? Take a Look at New Jersey’s State Medical School

Two doctors are being fired and the pay of at least eight others are being reduced in the wake of a federal monitor’s charges that the medical school has been paying kickbacks to cardiologists resulting in bilking Medicare and Medicaid out of tens of millions of dollars. The federal monitor said that the school’s top officials were complicit in the scheme and directly accused the interim university president, Bruce C. Vladeck of “trying to rebut, refute and bury” information. Vladeck released a letter responding to the report which included instructions to the dean of the medical school to fire or reduce the pay of 10 of the 18 physicians named in the monitor’s report. The kickback accusations are the latest in a line of accusations which caused investigators, after reading an article in a New Jersey legal publication which detailed a $2.2 million settlement by the school to a whistleblower, the former chief of the division of cardiology, who had warned the school that he feared these arrangements were probably illegal and to look further into the matter.

For more information please click here:

Double charges to Medicare Costs HealthSouth $4 Million

Conducting resulting in double charges to Medicare from 1994-2004 for the same prosthetic devices is costing HealthSouth (a nationwide rehabilitation company) millions of dollars. The allegations in this Federal False Claims Act case brought in Memphis, Tennessee, also included a scheme whereby HealthSouth would get braces and artificial limbs at no charge and then turn around and bill Medicare for the same devices.

$48 Million to become $144 Million Verdict Against Amerigroup Corp. For False Claims

It may cost Amerigroup Corp, a company that specializes in health care for low-income patients $144 million in damages for discriminating against pregnant women. A federal jury returned a $48 million verdict, which will be tripled under state and federal False Claims Act laws. The whistleblower lawsuit alleged that while marketing its services in Illinois, Amerigroup avoided pregnant women and others likely to run up high doctor bills. State Attorney General Lisa Madigan called the company’s alleged discrimination “unconscionable.”

Qui Tam 101

Archive for November, 2006

Whistleblower Suits Help Department of Justice Recover $3.1 Billion in FY 2006

Kickbacks in Medical School? Take a Look at New Jersey’s State Medical School

Double charges to Medicare Costs HealthSouth $4 Million

$48 Million to become $144 Million Verdict Against Amerigroup Corp. For False Claims