Recent Settlement Illustrates Enforcement Risks Associated With Physician Roll-Ups

On December 2, 2021, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) issued a press release announcing that Flower Mound Hospital Partners (“Flower Mound”), a partially physician-owned hospital, agreed to pay just over $18 million to resolve allegations that it had violated the False Claims Act by submitting claims that violated the Stark Law and the Anti-Kickback Statute. (more…)

Medicare Advantage Enforcement: DOJ Advances New Theories Based on Retrospective Chart Reviews

Over the past two months, DOJ has filed complaints-in-intervention in two FCA cases premised on allegedly fraudulent diagnosis codes submitted to CMS as a result of retrospective chart reviews.  These cases demonstrate how DOJ has begun to explore new legal theories that articulate a narrower view on the legality of retrospective chart reviews designed to add diagnosis codes. (more…)

Third Circuit Adopts the Seventh Circuit’s Voluntary Dismissal Standard for Evaluating Granston Motions to Dismiss

On October 28, 2021, the Third Circuit affirmed a district court’s grant of the United States’ motion to dismiss—over the relator’s objection—a qui tam alleging that the defendant had caused hospitals to submit false claims.  Adopting the Seventh Circuit’s approach, the court determined that in evaluating the government’s motion to dismiss over a relator’s objection in a declined qui tam, courts should apply the standards for voluntary dismissals contained in Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(a).

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D.C. Circuit Applies But-For Causation Standard, Weak Materiality Test to FCA Claims, While Concurrence Questions Viability of Fraudulent Inducement Theory

On July 6, 2021, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed in part and reversed in part a district court’s dismissal of the qui tam suit against IBM in United States ex rel. Cimino v. Int’l Bus. Machines Corp., No. 19-7139.  The relator alleged that IBM and the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) had entered into a software license agreement, but that upon learning that the IRS was uninterested in renewing the agreement, IBM fraudulently induced the IRS to extend the contract.  In particular, IBM allegedly collaborated with the auditor of the agreement, resulting in an audit finding that the IRS owed IBM $292 million for noncompliance with the contract’s terms.  IBM then offered allegedly to waive that fee in exchange for the IRS renewing the agreement.  The relator further alleged that once the new agreement was in place, IBM nonetheless collected $87 million of the noncompliance penalty by disguising that amount as fees for products and services that were never provided.  According to the relator, this scheme yielded FCA liability in two ways: first, IBM fraudulently induced the IRS to renew the agreement; second, IBM submitted false claims by billing $87 million for unprovided products and services.

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