As previous False Claims Act (FCA) Fundamentals posts have discussed, the FCA, 31 U.S.C. § 3729, et seq., can be triggered by submitting claims tied to violations of certain federal statutes. This post will explain the basics of two such statutes: the Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS) and the Stark Law.
Continue Reading False Claims Act Fundamentals: Anti-Kickback Statute and the Stark Law

I am looking forward to speaking on a panel at the ABA’s 2022 Virtual Civil False Claims Act and Qui Tam Enforcement Institute titled “Hot Topics 2022: Focus on AKS/Stark” on June 9, 2022 from 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM EST. I will be joined by Gejaa Gobena, Partner, Hogan Lovells, Jennifer Verkamp, Partner, Morgan Verkamp, and Ro Srinivas, Senior Trial Counsel, Department of Justice, Civil Division, Commercial Litigation Branch (Fraud Section).
Continue Reading [Virtual Event] Civil False Claims Act Conference

Bass, Berry & Sims is pleased to announce the release of the 10th annual Healthcare Fraud & Abuse Review examining important healthcare fraud developments in 2021. Compiled by the firm’s Healthcare Fraud & Abuse Task Force, the Review provides a comprehensive analysis of enforcement developments affecting the healthcare industry, significant court decisions involving the False Claims Act, and an overview of settlements involving fraud and abuse issues.
Continue Reading Download Now – 10th Annual Healthcare Fraud & Abuse Review

I recently discussed the trends related to False Claims Act (FCA) settlements in the home health sector, as revealed in the Healthcare Fraud & Abuse Settlements Database which we launched earlier this year. The database was part of the comprehensive Healthcare Fraud & Abuse Resource Center that provides an overview of FCA enforcement settlements, court decisions, updates involving the Stark Law and Anti-Kickback Statute, and other developments affecting the healthcare industry.

“We wanted to create a database of False Claims Act settlements to allow providers to have easy access to information, to see the cases that the government or regulators have resolved in the health care fraud space,” I told Home Health Care News. “This is the first publicly available database of this type.”

According to the information in the database, home health providers have paid at least $422.6 million since 2012 to settle FCA allegations. This represents 51 different cases over the time period from 2012-2020.Continue Reading False Claims Act Cases in Home Health Sector

We released our Healthcare Fraud & Abuse Annual Review earlier this month. To serve as a companion to the Review, we’re hosting a complimentary webinar on Thursday, February 18, 2021 from 8:00-10:00 a.m. PT / 10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. CT / 11:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m. ET. that will take a deeper dive into key focus areas covered

Bass, Berry & Sims is pleased to announce the release of the newest edition of its Healthcare Fraud & Abuse Annual Review examining important healthcare fraud developments in 2020. Compiled by the firm’s Healthcare Fraud Task Force, the Review provides an in-depth and comprehensive analysis of the past year’s court decisions involving the False

On June 25, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed the dismissal with prejudice of a qui tam False Claims Act (FCA) suit alleging certain physician compensation arrangements at Trinity Health violated the Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS) and Stark Law.

The relator, a former surgeon at one of Trinity’s hospitals, alleged the following:

  1. Trinity paid five of its highest-earning physicians above fair market value by compensating them in excess of 90th percentile compensation for their specialties at levels not justified by their personal productivity.
  2. The high compensation generated practice losses for Trinity absent taking into account the physicians’ downstream referrals to the health system.
  3. As a result of the physicians’ compensation methodology, they performed unnecessary surgeries to inflate their compensation.
  4. Trinity opted not to renew the relator’s contract because he complained about these allegedly-unnecessary surgeries.

Continue Reading Eighth Circuit Affirms Dismissal of Kickback Case

Bass, Berry & Sims is pleased to announce the release of the 2019 edition of its Healthcare Fraud & Abuse Annual Review. Compiled by the firm’s Healthcare Fraud Task Force​​​​​​​, the Review is an in-depth and comprehensive analysis of enforcement settlements, court decisions, and recent developments affecting the healthcare industry.

The Review details

On December 20, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit granted in part a petition for rehearing filed by the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) in a False Claims Act (FCA) case that has generated considerable attention among hospitals and health systems due to its treatment of commonplace, productivity-based physician compensation models.  Ultimately, the Third Circuit vacated its original September 17, 2019 decision and issued a revised opinion reversing its holding that the relators could establish a problematic indirect compensation arrangement simply by alleging the employed neurosurgeons’ pay for personally performed services correlated with the volume or value of their referrals to UPMC’s facilities for the corresponding hospital services.

As discussed in our October 14 post, U.S. ex rel. Bookwalter v. UPMC involved employment arrangements between UPMC’s subsidiary physician practice entities and various neurosurgeons pursuant to which the physicians earned base salaries and potential incentive bonuses tied to their personally performed work relative value units (wRVUs).  The Third Circuit previously held – in reliance on a controversial construction of the Stark Law’s “volume or value” test – that the relators pleaded facts sufficient to demonstrate the surgeons’ compensation both varied with and took into account the volume or value of their designated health service referrals to UPMC’s hospitals, thereby creating an impermissible indirect compensation arrangement.Continue Reading Update: Third Circuit Allows Allegations of Improper Compensation under the Stark Law to Proceed, but Reverses Controversial “Varies with Volume or Value” Reasoning