The Massachusetts federal district court is hands-down winner of the August award for strangest regulatory interpretation of the month. The interpretation came in the context of denial of Omnicare’s summary judgment motion in a False Claims Act (FCA) action brought against it by three whistleblowers. The …
Anti-Kickback Regs Near Approval, After Only 19 Years
August 25, 2016 Leave a Comment
The White House is reviewing proposed regulations to ease restrictions on certain financial arrangements between hospitals and physicians and on certain transactions between providers and patients. The proposed regulations, received by the Office of Management & Budget on August 16, are certainly welcome to …
Court Rejects Qui Tam Attack on Standard On-Call Contract
June 15, 2016 Leave a Comment
On June 10 the Third Circuit affirmed a lower court’s dismissal of a physician’s qui tam action against Pottstown Memorial Medical Center (PMMC) for violating the Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS) and False Claims Act (FCA). And it’s a good thing because the basis of his claim was an on-call coverage arrangement …
Health Care Fraud and Abuse Enforcement Priorities in Minnesota
March 7, 2016 Leave a Comment
United States Attorney for the District of Minnesota, Andrew Luger, spoke at a public event on March 3, 2016, at Mitchell-Hamline School of Law on the topic of health care fraud & abuse enforcement priorities in Minnesota. Luger began the discussion explaining the resource shortage issue in the white collar …
A Recap of National Health IT Week
October 12, 2015 Leave a Comment
National Health IT Week wrapped up on Friday. This may have been the most eventful week in the ten year history of the event, which is organized by the Health Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS). Below are a few of the highlights (each of which could likely carry its own blog post): Stage 3 …
Suing the Hand that Feeds You
October 6, 2015 Leave a Comment
Jeffrey Jacobs alleges that Idaho’s Pocatello Hospital violated the False Claims Act because of physician recruitment contracts that were overly generous to his practice group. Jeff should know because he was recruited under one of the contracts and worked for the group for three years. According to the …