A number of recent FCA decisions have grappled with the question of objective falsity, particularly in the context of FCA claims where the alleged falsity is premised on a lack of medical necessity in connection with the medical services provided.  The most recent in this line of cases considered whether a relator alleging nothing more than a difference of medical opinion regarding medical necessity of a particular cardiac procedure failed to plead objective falsity as required to state an FCA claim as a matter of law.

In U.S. ex rel. Polukoff v. St. Mark’s Hospital, 2017 WL 237615 (D. Utah Jan. 19, 2017), the relator alleged that a cardiologist and two Utah hospitals fraudulently billed the government for medically unnecessary cardiac procedures involving the surgical closure of a patent foramen ovale (PFO), which is a “a small opening in the wall separating the two upper chambers of the heart” that exists in about 25% of the population and is typically asymptomatic.  Adults with a PFO have an increased risk of suffering a stroke; although, according to the district court, “[o]pinions regarding the use of a PFO closure to prevent strokes have varied over the past decade.”Continue Reading Failure to Plead Objective Falsity Dooms Cardiologist’s FCA Complaint