I posted earlier today on this whistle blower lawyer blog about the comments of the Director of the new IRS Whistleblower Office, Stephen Whitlock, on how the IRS Whistleblower program is off to a good start, with credible claims and supporting evidence having been submitted by whistleblowers and their attorneys.…
The head of the new IRS Whistleblower Office, Stephen Whitlock, reports that the new IRS Whistleblower Rewards Program is off to a strong start. Today’s Wall Street Journal quotes Mr. Whitlock as saying that the claims submitted to the IRS Whistleblower Office to date appear to have credibility and have…
A qui tam whistleblower and his lawyer are very happy as a result of a $102 million jury verdict–to be shared by the whistleblower–in a False Claims Act trial that ended on May 14. The defendants in this whistleblower case included Bill Harbert International Construction Inc.; Harbert Construction Services; Bilhar…
Because health care fraud in the Medicare and Medicaid programs is such a huge problem, this week our whistleblower lawyer blog writers (former federal prosecutors who are now whistleblower attorneys) begin a series of posts on “Lessons from Health Care Fraud in Medicare and Medicaid.” We will discuss how whistle…
Just after Georgia, New York, and Oklahoma have passed new whistleblower laws similar to the federal False Claims Act to protect at least state Medicaid funds, Texas is poised to do even more. We were pleased to see that, on May 4, Texas upgraded its already successful Texas Medicaid Fraud…
We are pleased to see yet another state–Oklahoma–realize how effective qui tam whistleblower laws are by passing a state False Claims Act this week. The Oklahoma legislature has passed the Oklahoma Medicaid False Claims Act (SB 889). The bill’s primary author was Cox Crain. The new whistleblower law appears to…
To understand why states are passing their own “False Claims Acts” with qui tam whistleblower provisions, the heath care compliance newsletter Heathcare Auditing Strategies called on one of the authors of this whistleblower lawyer blog, Michael A. Sullivan. The May 2007 edition of this heath care compliance publication discusses the…
In a whistleblower lawsuit settlement, the Loma Linda Behavioral Science Center agreed to pay more than $2 million to resolve allegations of overbilling. This False Claims Act whistleblower case was filed by a former employee of Healthcare Financial Advisors (HFA), a consulting firm that advises hospitals in preparing cost reports.…
Health care cases remain busy this week. The Justice Department on April 26 announced that it is joining whistleblowers in pursuing three qui tam lawsuits against HealthEssentials Solutions Inc. (HES) that allege false claims were submitted to Medicare. The cases involve allegations of upcoding — improperly using a diagnosis code…
Another state whistleblower law, with qui tam provisions that follow the federal False Claims Act, was born today. The Georgia Senate passed the “State False Medicaid Claims Act” today, and it goes to Governor Sonny Perdue for his signature. We have been writing about this and other new state whistleblower…