On September 15, 2020, Doctor Akikur R. Mohammad, a California resident and drug treatment facility owner, pled guilty before the U.S. District Court of New Jersey for violating the Eliminating Kickbacks in Recovery Act (“EKRA”), one of the country’s first convictions under this statute targeting opioid kickbacks. Enforcement under EKRA can help shed light on questions remaining concerning the statute’s broad definitions, particularly around laboratory services, and its application in light of other federal laws…

Recently, a federal judge in the Central District of California granted a Motion to Dismiss on behalf of a manufacturer of ophthalmic lenses alleged to have engaged in an illegal kickback scheme, based on the public disclosure bar doctrine. The Court found that because the defendant in the case had long publicly advertised the rewards program alleged to have violated federal law, the Relator in the case could not overcome the False Claims Act (“FCA”)…

On January 27, 2020, Deputy Associate Attorney General, Stephan Cox, provided key note remarks at the 2020 Advanced Forum on False Claims and Qui Tam Enforcement. In his remarks, Mr. Cox noted that the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) recovered over $3 billion from False Claims Act (“FCA”) qui tam actions in the past fiscal year. In his speech, Mr. Cox stated that the DOJ was “considering what, if any, interests the United States has with…

In the last two weeks, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) published two notices in the Federal Register delaying the publication of certain final fraud and abuse rule reforms for up to a full year. First, in the Aug. 27 Federal Register, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) delayed the issuance of a final rule on eagerly anticipated reforms to the federal physician self‑referral law (the Stark Law) regulations.…

A recent Sixth Circuit opinion continues to “snuff [ ] out parasitic suits” brought under the False Claims Act (“FCA”) through the public-disclosure bar.  In U.S. ex rel. Holloway v. Heartland Hospice, Inc. (June 3, 2020 opinion), the court affirmed the lower court’s entry of summary judgment in favor of a hospice provider on grounds that the relator’s claims were barred in light of prior public disclosures of the underlying allegations contained in…

The number and value of announced settlements with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) concerning the physician self-referral law (the Stark Law) continued a downward trend in 2019. This marks the third straight year of such aggregate settlement declines since reaching a peak in 2016. Indeed, as shown on the first chart below, CMS announced the lowest aggregate settlement dollars collected since the Stark Law disclosure first year in 2011. Similarly, as shown…