Last month, the Central District of California granted the government’s affirmative motion for partial summary judgment in U.S. v. Reliance Medical Sys., 2022 WL 524062 (C.D. Cal. Feb. 2, 2022). The Reliance Medical case involved an FCA action based on a theory that certain physician-owned distributorships (PODs) violated the Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS). As detailed below,
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Eye Care Practice Settles with Government for Employing Excluded Individual
On March 18, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and the Connecticut Attorney General announced that a Connecticut eye care practice and its owners had agreed to pay $192,699 to resolve allegations that the practice improperly employed an individual who was excluded by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) from…
Analysis of DOJ’s 2021 False Claims Act Statistics and Related Trends
Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that it recovered more than $5.6 billion under the False Claims Act in fiscal year 2021 — an enormous total, second only to 2014 recoveries.
Read the latest post on “Subject to Inquiry” for analysis of the reported 2021 statistics, how they compare to previous years’…
Seventh Circuit Clarifies Pleading Standard for Anesthesiologist’s False Claims Action

The Seventh Circuit recently reversed a lower court’s ruling that an amended complaint in a qui tam lawsuit filed under the False Claims Act (FCA) alleging fraudulent anesthesiology billing practices failed to meet the pleading standard under Rule 9(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. In U.S. ex. rel. Mamalakis vs. Anesthetix Management LLC,…
Will 2022 Be The Year? OIG’s 25 Top Recommendations to Reduce Healthcare Fraud
Every year the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) releases an annual Solutions to Reduce Fraud, Waste, and Abuse in HHS Programs: OIG’s Top Unimplemented Recommendations. HHS released its most recent in Nov. 2021, outlining OIG’s top 25 unimplemented recommendations that, in OIG’s view, would most positively…
Court Allows Superseding Indictment Twelve Days Before Trial, Failing to Find Prosecutorial Vindictiveness
In U.S. v. Georges, 2021 WL 3887183 (S.D. Oh. Aug. 30, 2021), a federal court recently dismissed a defendant’s motion to dismiss a superseding indictment, denying her claim of prosecutorial vindictiveness related to multiple alleged violations of the Federal Anti-Kickback Statute. The defendant, Nicole Georges, was a pharmaceutical representative who coordinated speaking arrangements with physicians…
Another Circuit Weighs in on the Standard for Evaluating Government Motions to Dismiss False Claims Act Actions
In a recent opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit weighed in on what standard to apply in reviewing government motions to dismiss False Claims Act (FCA) actions. As discussed in detail in a July 2021 Law360 article titled “Tide Is Turning Against FCA Case Dismissals,” a three-way circuit split has developed…
Federal Court Permits Government Intervention in FCA Case After Seven Years After Finding “Good Cause”
The Western District of New York recently allowed the government to intervene in an FCA action brought months after the government’s initial notice of declination and more than seven years after the government initiated its investigation. U.S. ex rel. Teresa Ross v. Indep. Health Corp., et al., 12-cv-299, 2021 WL 3492917 (W.D.N.Y. Aug. 9, 2021).…
Fifth Circuit Orders Return of Privileged Property After Government Seizure
The Fifth Circuit recently reversed a district court’s dismissal of a motion to return property after the government’s seizure of protected attorney-client information in Harbor Healthcare Sys., L.P. v. United States, 5 F.4th 593 (July 15, 2021). Harbor Healthcare System, L.P. (“Harbor”) was the subject of two qui tam lawsuits—filed in 2014 and 2016—alleging violations…
District Court Embraces Expansive View of “Referrals” to include Accessing Records
In Stop Illinois Health Care Fraud, LLC v. Sayeed, No. 12-CV-09306, 2021 WL 2331338 (N.D. Ill. June 8, 2021), an Illinois district court issued an order after a recent bench trial finding that the defendants violated the False Claims Act (FCA), Illinois False Claims Act (IFCA), and the Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS) when they paid a…