Qui Tam

We have often talk about how the law protects those who blow the whistle on medical fraud, and how qui tam actions can help the government AND whistleblowers recover funds when physicians, hospitals, medical device makers, and others defraud the government. In 2018, whistleblowers helped the US government collect more than $2.1 billion in recoveries.…

Do you know somebody who’s ripping off the government? Do you know someone who is ripping off the United States government, the Arizona government? If so, you can bring a claim under the False Claims Act. This is also known as a qui tam claim, or a whistleblower claim. It’s the patriotic thing to…

Cecilia Guardiola, RN, has an impressive resume as a hospital compliance expert. However, recently, she’s been having trouble landing a job. It seems that once hospitals do a background check on Ms. Guardiola, she rarely hears from them again. That may have something to do with the three whistleblower lawsuits she’s filed against former hospitals…

On March 5, 2018, Natera Inc. settled with the U.S. government for $11.4 million dollars to resolve a qui tam action filed by Sallie McAdoo and Steven Aldridge in January 2015. The qui tam complaint alleges that Natera, a genetic testing laboratory which performed services for which they were reimbursed by several government agencies, submitted…

The decade old lawsuit of a former law enforcement officer has facilitated the U.S. government’s re-capture of $66 million from a Japanese manufacturer. Toyobo manufactured and sold bulletproof fiber for bulletproof vests issued to local, state, federal, and tribal law enforcement agencies. The fiber was eventually found to be defective. The U.S. Department of Justice…

In February, the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously ruled that the anti-retaliation protections of the Dodd-Frank Act do not kick in until a whistleblower has reported the fraud to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). A whistleblower, as the law defines it, is someone who provides information to the SEC (or another federal…

A whistleblower is a person who exposes fraud, or illicit or illegal behavior in an organization. When that information is reported to the government, and the government is able to recover funds from the company or organization engaged in such behavior, that is called a qui tam action. (So, all qui tam actions are acts…

You can be rewarded if you help uncover fraud perpetrated by a business against the federal government. That is what a qui tam action is. The latest numbers are out for fiscal year 2017, and this was a big year for the False Claims Act. The National Law Review reports that the Department of Justice…

We had our fair share of natural disasters in 2017. So far, the country has weathered hurricanes, droughts, tornadoes, floods, and wildfires. Hundreds of people have died, and countless citizens have lost their homes and personal property. Clean up and recovery could take months or years. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was created to…

The number of health care fraud cases under the False Claims Act (FCA) is increasing every year. A study conducted by Taxpayers Against Fraud (TAF), reported 62 cases of qui tam health care fraud in the years between 1987 and 1992, but that number spiked to 417 cases in 2011, 412 in 2012, and in…

There are three important federal laws that apply to healthcare fraud and abuse: The False Claims Act, the Stark Law and the Anti-Kickback Statute are three federal laws which govern other forms of compensation for doctors. Healthcare providers must navigate the complicated laws and potential regulatory pitfalls to make sure that their business is operating…