Pharmaceutical company Elan Corporation recently announced an agreement with the DOJ to pay $203.5 million to settle Medicaid fraud claims involving its previously divested antiepileptic drug, Zonegran. As a result of the agreement, Elan pled guilty to a misdemeanor violation of the Food Drug and Cosmetics Act (FDCA) and plans…
The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced today that it has charged 94 doctors, healthcare company owners, and executives with submitting more than $251 million in false claims to Medicare. The arrests spread across five different states in areas the federal government has deemed fraud hotspots. It was the largest federal…
An Orange County, CA based heart-monitoring services company has agreed to pay the U.S. government $3.6 million to settle allegations that the company overbilled Medicare from 1998-2004. The complaint was first filed in 2004 against National Cardio Labs LLC, its manager Adrienne Stanman, and her husband Robert Parsons. Specifically, the…
A federal district court judge has denied Pfizer’s motion to dismiss a derivative shareholder suit against the company which alleges that directors and executives at Pfizer are liable for actions that led to a historic $2.3 billion settlement with the U.S. government in 2009. Pfizer entered into this enormous settlement…
The United States has charged Dr. Nijam Azmat and the Satilla Regional Medical Center of Waycross, Georgia with violating the False Claims Act by billing Medicare for services that were of no medical value to federal health program patients. The government alleges that Dr. Azmat and the medical center performed,…
The Department of Justice (DOJ) has decided to intervene in a False Claims Act case against Oracle Corporation, a software manufacturer that had a contract with the General Service Administration (GSA). The federal government alleges Oracle defrauded the government into overpaying it hundreds of millions of dollars over the course…
Two whistleblowers first filed a False Claims Act case against Rush University Medical Center in 2004. While the lawsuit included allegations of many different types of fraud, the United States only intervened with respect to violations of the Stark Law (Rush was accused of entering into improper relationships with physicians). …
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is asking Congress for the power to boot executives convicted of Medicare fraud from federal health programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. These booted executives will struggle to find new employment in the industry, considering the U.S. government is the largest prescription…