Healthcare Fraud
Morgan Verkamp has a long history of successfully bringing and settling False Claims Act cases involving healthcare fraud schemes. From start to finish, our team litigates matters involving kickbacks, physician self-referrals, swapping, billing fraud, off-label marketing and other healthcare-related schemes. We regularly provide analysis and support for cases winding their way through the court system by, for example, writing briefs submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court and other courts around the country about healthcare fraud issues, and we speak at conferences around the country on the same topics. Our team includes lawyers with pre-law careers in healthcare, one as an EMT, the other in women’s healthcare advocacy and clinic management.
Most False Claims Act cases and recoveries relate to healthcare, which is the single largest item in the federal budget. In Fiscal Year 2019, the Department of Justice obtained $2.6 billion in settlements and judgments related to healthcare, making it the tenth consecutive year that federal civil healthcare fraud recoveries exceeded $2 billion. Hundreds of millions of dollars more have been recovered in that same time by states whose Medicaid programs were defrauded.
Our clients’ results in healthcare speak for themselves. Click here to read some success stories. In October 2019, one of our clients reached a $4 million settlement with an inpatient rehabilitation hospital for upcoding patient severity. In February 2018, another client settled a kickback case against a radiation oncology company in Dallas for $11.5 million, and one of the individual initiators of the scheme settled for an additional $300,000 in June 2020. In January 2018, another client settled a case against a North Carolina physician who took kickbacks in exchange for using certain cataract surgery products, for $3 million. In November 2017, a Morgan Verkamp client settled a Stark Law case against the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center for $21 million. In mid-2017, one of our clients settled a kickback case against a company that distributes intraocular lenses and other cataract surgery supplies for $12 million; earlier that year, other clients settled claims against the largest nursing home chain in Ohio. In 2015, a client settled kickback allegations against a large nursing-home chain in Florida for $17 million. In 2014, our client settled kickback allegations against Omnicare for $120 million.
As these results illustrate, fraudulent conduct reaches virtually every corner of the healthcare field – hospitals, drug companies, hospice centers, nursing homes, home healthcare providers, long-term care facilities, ambulance companies, pharmacies, laboratories, and healthcare technology providers. And it takes many forms, often with devastating consequences for patient health and always at the expense of the taxpayers.
For more information about the various types of healthcare fraud and some of the healthcare cases handled by the Morgan Verkamp team, follow these links:
