During the fiscal year ending September 30, 2021, the U.S. Department of Justice resolved a number of matters in which providers billed federal health care programs for medically unnecessary services or services not rendered as billed. For example, SavaSeniorCare LLC and related entities agreed to pay $11.2 million for alleged false claims for rehabilitation therapy services provided as a result of aggressive corporate targets without regard for its patients’ actual clinical needs, resulting in the provision of medically unreasonable, unnecessary or unskilled services to Medicare patients. The settlement also resolved allegations that Sava provided grossly and materially substandard and/or worthless skilled nursing services.

Alere Inc. and Alere San Diego Inc. (collectively, Alere) paid $38.75 million to resolve allegations that they billed, and caused others to bill, for defective rapid point-of-care testing devices used by Medicare beneficiaries to monitor blood coagulation when taking anticoagulant drugs. In another matter, Apria Healthcare LLC paid $40.5 million to resolve allegations that it submitted false claims for the rental of costly non-invasive ventilators to program beneficiaries who did not need the devices or were not using them. St. Jude Medical Inc. paid $27 million to settle allegations that it knowingly sold defective, implantable heart devices and failed to disclose serious adverse health events in connection with premature battery depletion in those devices. Regency Inc. and its owner agreed to a civil settlement up to $20.3 million to resolve allegations that they falsified documentation to enable the billing of federal healthcare programs for medically unnecessary durable medical equipment. In addition, the department continues to focus on inadequate care and other fraud in nursing facilities, which provide care to a particularly vulnerable population (as reflected by the resolutions this year with SavaSeniorCare LLC, discussed above, and Select Medical Rehabilitation Services Inc).

The United States Department of Justice announced on February 1, 2022 that it obtained more than $5.6 billion in settlements and judgments from civil cases involving fraud and false claims against the government in the fiscal year ending September 30, 2022. Of the $5.6 billion in settlements and judgments, over $1.6 billion arose from lawsuits filed under the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act. During the same period, the government paid out $237 million to the individuals who exposed fraud and false claims by filing these actions.

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If you have information regarding false claims having been submitted to Medicare, Medicaid, TRICARE, other federal health care programs, or to other federal agencies/programs, and the information is not publically known and no actions have been taken by the government with regard to recovering the false claims, you should promptly consult with a False Claims Act attorney (also known as qui tam attorneys) in your U.S. state who may investigate the basis of your False Claims Act allegations and who may also assist you in bringing a qui tam lawsuit on behalf of the United States, if appropriate, for which you may be entitled to receive a portion of the recovery received by the U.S. government.

Visit our website or call us toll-free in the United States at 800-295-3959 to be connected with qui tam lawyers (False Claims Act lawyers) in your U.S. state who may assist you with a False Claims Act lawsuit.

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