Judge Saris Green Lights FCA Claims Against PE Fund Based on Regulatory Non-Compliance of its Portfolio Company Healthcare Provider for Trial
Late last week, Judge Patti Saris (D. Mass.) issued an opinion on cross-motions for summary judgment filed by a qui tam relator and Massachusetts and a group of defendants that includes South Bay Mental Health Center (“South Bay”) and its private equity fund owner, permitting the vast majority of plaintiffs’ claims to proceed to the jury. The opinion addresses important questions of law as to each of the elements of the FCA related to claims to Medicaid for services allegedly provided in violation of various state regulatory requirements. However, the opinion is most notable for being the first to hold at the dispositive motion stage that a private equity fund and its principals can act with the requisite scienter and cause the submission of false claims, and thus be exposed directly to the treble damages and statutory penalties of the FCA as a result of conduct by a healthcare provider portfolio company. As such, we may expect it to add momentum to DOJ’s stated intent to pursue FCA claims against PE investors in the industry, as we previously reported here.
Tenth Circuit Holds That Claims For Medical Care That Fail To Meet Industry Standards May Be Deemed Objective False
Earlier this month, in U.S. ex rel. Polukoff v. St. Mark’s Hospital et al., No. 17-4014 (Jul. 9, 2018), the Tenth Circuit reversed a lower court’s dismissal of FCA claims, holding that “[i]t is possible for a medical judgment to be ‘false or fraudulent’” under the FCA. As previously reported here, the relator had alleged that a cardiologist performed and billed Medicare and Medicaid for unnecessary heart surgeries known as PFO closures. The District of Utah, in granting defendants’ motion to dismiss, had concluded that claims associated with those procedures, in which the doctor represented that the procedures were medically necessary, could not be deemed objectively false because “liability may not be premised on subjective interpretations of imprecise statutory language such as ‘medically reasonable and necessary.’”
District Court Calls Into Question Scope of CMS Overpayment Rules
The question of when an overpayment becomes “identified” for purposes of False Claims Act liability has generated significant uncertainty, and one district court just added more fodder for debate. See UnitedHealthcare Ins. Co. v. Price, No. 16-cv-157 (D.D.C. Mar. 31, 2017). The Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) requires persons to report and return overpayments from Medicare or Medicaid within 60 days of identification, and the failure to do so can trigger FCA liability. The ACA delegated to CMS the task of defining when an entity has “identified” an overpayment. CMS promulgated two rules (in May 2014 for Medicare Advantage (“MA”) plans and Part D Sponsors and in February 2016 for Medicare Part A/B providers), which equate “identification” to circumstances in which a person “has, or should have through the exercise of reasonable diligence, determined that the person has received an overpayment.” The “should have identified” standard generated concerns that CMS was using a simple negligence standard. The FCA, however, requires proof of at least “reckless disregard,” which courts have equated to gross (not merely simple) negligence.
Court Holds That Disputes Over Medical Necessity Fail To Satisfy FCA’s Falsity Standard
In a January 19, 2017 decision, a federal judge in Utah considered whether claims submitted by a physician could be deemed “objectively false” based on alleged non-compliance with industry standards. The court concluded that allegations that a doctor failed to comply with an industry standard for medical care do not satisfy the objective falsity standard and do not render false the physician’s certification that he or she believed that the services “were medically indicated and necessary for the health of the patient.” United States ex rel. Polukoff v. St. Mark’s Hospital et al., No. 2:16-cv-00304-JNP-EJF (D. Utah Jan. 19, 2017).
DOJ Contends That Differences in Medical Opinion Can Support False Claims, Seeking Reversal in AseraCare Appeal
As we previously reported here, DOJ is appealing its defeat in AseraCare, in which the district court concluded that “expressions of opinion, scientific judgments, or statements as to conclusions about which reasonable minds may differ cannot be false,” and that the government had marshaled nothing more than a difference of opinion between its own expert and the defense’s. On appeal to the Eleventh Circuit, DOJ is arguing forcefully for rejection of the view that disputes about medical necessity cannot serve as the basis for an FCA claim.
District Court Rejects Use of Statistical Sampling to Prove FCA Liability and Upholds Application of AKS Bone Fide Employee Exception
We previously reported on the Supreme Court’s opinion earlier this year in Tyson Foods v. Bouaphakeo, a non-FCA case that upheld the use of statistical sampling to establish liability in a Fair Labor Standards Act suit, but which offered important narrowing limitations that we argued were applicable to FCA cases (see here). Relying in part on Tyson Foods, a district court recently refused to allow a relator to use extrapolation to establish FCA liability, finding that extrapolation was inappropriate in a case based on claims of medical necessity. See United States ex rel. Wall v. Vista Hospice Care, Inc., No. 07-cv-00604 (N.D. Tex. June 20, 2016).
Trial Court Delivers Stunning Defeat to DOJ In AseraCare
Today, the district court in the AseraCare case delivered the coup de grace to the Department of Justice, granting summary judgment for AseraCare after previously vacating a jury’s verdict in favor of DOJ. In so doing, the court’s brief order emphasizes that disagreements over medical necessity, standing alone, provide no basis for an FCA claim. See Order in United States v. AseraCare Inc., No. 12-cv-00245 (N.D. Ala. Mar. 31, 2016). The district court’s holding that “contradiction based on clinical judgment or opinion alone cannot constitute falsity under the FCA as a matter of law” buttresses potential defense arguments in suits involving issues of medical necessity or other judgment calls, including alleged upcoding.
Key Takeaways from CMS Part A/B Overpayments Final Rule
After nearly four years, CMS has revised and finalized its proposed rule offering guidance to Medicare Part A and B providers and suppliers as to how they can fulfill their statutory obligations to report and return “identified” overpayments. CMS altered a number of its proposals, including adopting a six-year lookback period, rather than ten. Perhaps most critically for providers, the Agency departed from its earlier interpretation of “identified” to allow for some length of time—generally six months, except in extraordinary circumstances—to quantify overpayments before the sixty-day repayment clock begins to run.
In an article available here, we provide further analysis of CMS’ final rule and discuss implications for qui tam suits and corporate compliance programs. A copy of the final rule is available here.
Court Rejects Expansive Discovery Against National Provider Based On Allegations Of Misconduct At Particular Facilities
A recent decision out of a California district court rejected an attempt by a former employee of a provider organization with nationwide operations to obtain nationwide discovery based on alleged misconduct occurring at the particular facility where the former employee worked. The court’s thorough analysis is a model for other courts being asked to allow relators to subject defendants to expensive nationwide discovery based on generalized allegations that purported wrongdoing at a particular location was part of a nationwide pattern or practice.
District Court Dismisses Claims Based on Inflated CMS Star Ratings But Allows Kickback Claims to Proceed
A district court recently denied a relator’s efforts to translate alleged manipulation of skilled nursing facility (“SNF”) CMS Star Ratings into a claim under the FCA, while allowing the relator to proceed with allegations that the CEO of a SNF chain oversaw a kickback scheme designed to churn business. See U.S. ex rel. Orten v. North Amer. Health Care, Inc., No. 14-cv-02401 (N.D. Cal. Nov. 9, 2015). The case reinforces well-established precedent that FCA suits alleging regulatory violations cannot proceed where the government does not condition payment on complete regulatory compliance. The government’s Statement of Interest arguing that the public disclosure bar was triggered as to certain claims demonstrates the DOJ’s growing wariness of opportunistic behavior by relators seeking to capitalize on pre-existing government investigations to which they did not contribute.