For several years, courts have wrestled with the question of whether subjective clinical decisions regarding the type and amount of treatment patients may need can be false for purposes of establishing False Claims Act (FCA) liability.  The question of whether the FCA requires a showing of objective falsity has divided appellate courts in a number of recent high-profile cases.

For their part, practitioners have kept a close eye on whether the Supreme Court might bring much-needed clarity to this issue.  On February 22, the Supreme Court declined to do so, denying a petition for certiorari with respect to the Third Circuit’s opinion in U.S. ex rel. Druding v. Care Alternatives.

In Druding, the relators, who were former employees of a hospice provider, filed a qui tam action alleging that the hospice provider submitted false claims by routinely certifying patients who were not terminally ill for hospice care.  During the litigation, the relators’ expert examined the medical records of nearly 50 patients and concluded that the documentation did not support a certification of terminal illness for approximately 35% of those patients.  The hospice provider produced its own expert who testified a physician could have reasonably concluded that the patients at issue were terminally ill and needed hospice care.Continue Reading Supreme Court Declines to Weigh in on Key Falsity Question