Tragic news events on Long Island have made the public increasingly aware of the threat posed by prescription drug trafficking and abuse. In June 2011, four people were killed by a man robbing a Medford pharmacy for prescription painkillers. On New Year’s Eve, an ATF agent was killed trying to stop a robbery at a
Justice Department Increasing Use of Civil Investigative Demands
Several health care industry companies, including Medicis, ArthroCare and Amedisys, reported in their 2012 first quarter reports that they were under Department of Justice investigations and had received civil investigative demands from the government.
Civil investigative demands, referred to as CIDs, are a particularly powerful pre-lawsuit administrative tool for federal investigations. Using CIDs, the government
False Claims Act Settlement Requires Admission of Conduct
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York recently announced the settlement of a health care False Claims Act case against Beth Israel Medical Center for fraudulently inflating its fees for services provided to Medicare patients in order to obtain larger “outlier payments.” Beth Israel agreed to pay over $13 million to
Federal Court Rules on Qui Tam Issue
In a recent Southern District of New York decision, Judge Jed S. Rakoff examined the original source exception to the False Claims Act’s (“FCA”) public disclosure bar. In United States ex rel. Associates Against Outlier Fraud v. Huron Consulting Group, Inc., 2012 WL 506824 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 16, 2012), the relator alleged that defendant Huron