On March 31, 2016, the district court granted summary judgment for hospice provider AseraCare in a case alleging that it had submitted false claims to Medicare by certifying patients as eligible for service who did not have a prognosis of six months or less to live if their terminal illness ran its normal course. U.S. ex rel. Paradies v. AseraCare Inc., 2106 WL 1270521 (N.D. Ala. Mar. 31, 2016). In its opinion, the district court reiterated that “the submission of a false claim is the sine qua non of a False Claims Act violation,” and held a “contradiction based on clinical judgment or opinion alone cannot constitute falsity under the FCA as a matter of law.” The district court further explained that when hospice certifying physicians and medical experts “look at the very same medical records and disagree about whether the medical records support hospice eligibility, the opinion of one medical expert alone cannot prove falsity without further evidence of an objective falsehood.”
Continue Reading Failure to Establish Objective Falsity Dooms Government’s Hospice Case
FCA Deeper Dive: Materiality and the Government’s Decision To Pay
The FCA continues to be the federal government’s primary civil enforcement tool for investigating allegations that healthcare providers or government contractors defrauded the federal government. In the coming weeks, we will take a closer look at recent legal developments involving the FCA. This week, we examine the requirement that the conduct alleged to have resulted in a false claim must be material to the government’s decision to pay that claim and how courts have evaluated this issue in recent cases.
FCA claims should fail when the regulations allegedly violated are immaterial to the government’s decision to pay a claim. Where the theory of FCA liability turns on compliance with statutes and regulations in the healthcare context, courts continue to distinguish between regulations that are conditions of participation in the federal healthcare program and regulations that are conditions of payment, holding only violations of the latter can underpin FCA liability. As the Sixth Circuit has explained, violations of condition of participation are best addressed through administrative sanctions, not the “extraordinary remedies” of the FCA. See U.S. ex rel. Hobbs v. MedQuest Assocs., 711 F.3d 707 (6th Cir. 2013).Continue Reading FCA Deeper Dive: Materiality and the Government’s Decision To Pay
FCA Deeper Dive: Meeting the FCA’s Intent Requirement
The FCA continues to be the federal government’s primary civil enforcement tool for investigating allegations that healthcare providers or government contractors defrauded the federal government. In the coming weeks, we will take a closer look at recent legal developments involving the FCA. This week, we examine the requirement that a relator plead and prove that a defendant acted with the requisite level of knowledge to establish an FCA claim and evaluate how courts have evaluated this issue in recent cases.
Continue Reading FCA Deeper Dive: Meeting the FCA’s Intent Requirement
FCA Deeper Dive: Worthless Services as a Theory of Falsity
The FCA continues to be the federal government’s primary civil enforcement tool for investigating allegations that healthcare providers or government contractors defrauded the federal government. In the coming weeks, we will take a closer look at recent legal developments involving the FCA. This week, we examine recent court decisions considering relators’ efforts to plead and prove falsity under the FCA by relying on a worthless services theory of liability.
The Seventh Circuit’s decision in U.S. ex rel. Absher v. Momence Meadows Nursing Center, Inc., 764 F.3d 699 (7th Cir. 2014), casts significant doubt on the “worthless services” theory of FCA liability. Following the Seventh Circuit’s ruling in Momence, courts have reaffirmed the high hurdle that relators must surmount in order to plead a “worthless services” claim under the FCA.Continue Reading FCA Deeper Dive: Worthless Services as a Theory of Falsity
FCA Deeper Dive: Pleading and Proving Falsity under the FCA
The FCA continues to be the federal government’s primary civil enforcement tool for investigating allegations that healthcare providers or government contractors defrauded the federal government. In the coming weeks, we will take a closer look at recent legal developments involving the FCA. This week, we examine recent court decisions considering the requirement that a relator plead and prove falsity to establish an FCA claim and evaluate the different theories of falsity that have emerged during the last several years.
Use of Statistical Sampling to Establish Falsity
Following last year’s landmark ruling in U.S. ex rel. Martin v. LifeCare Centers of America, Inc., 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 142657 (E.D. Tenn. Sept. 29, 2014), statistical sampling has become an increasingly important issue in FCA cases. This year, decisions by the district court in U.S. ex rel. Paradies v. AseraCare, Inc., 2015 WL 8486874 (N.D. Ala. Nov. 3, 2015), reiterated this fact. AseraCare faced allegations that it falsely billed the government for hospice patients that failed to satisfy requirements that patients be terminally ill and have a life expectancy of six months or less. Anticipating lengthy trial testimony concerning the statistical sample of 233 claims, the district court bifurcated the trial for the FCA’s falsity element from trial for all other elements. In arriving at its novel decision, the district court rejected the government’s objections that bifurcation would result in juror confusion and duplicative evidence.Continue Reading FCA Deeper Dive: Pleading and Proving Falsity under the FCA
No FCA Liability Where There Is No False Claim – Qui Tam Suit Against Maker of Avastin Dismissed
In U.S. ex rel. Petratos v. Genentech, Inc., the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey dismissed a qui tam action claiming that Genentech underreported side effects of the widely-used cancer drug Avastin. In its opinion, the district court reiterated that the FCA is not intended to reach wrongful behavior that does not lead to a false claim or regulatory violations not tied to payment.
Relator’s complaint alleged that defendants made false submissions to the FDA by relying on patient databases that contained inadequate information about drug risks and side effects and otherwise refused to provide data regarding such risks to a Key Opinion Leader based upon defendants’ false assertion that this information was unavailable. The relator claimed that this conduct cost taxpayers “hundreds of millions of dollars,” because fewer doctors would have prescribed Avastin if defendants had provided complete and accurate information, and government payers would have reimbursed for fewer Avastin indications, for lower dosages, or not at all.Continue Reading No FCA Liability Where There Is No False Claim – Qui Tam Suit Against Maker of Avastin Dismissed