Your prescribed dose of health law news
For those who just can’t get enough fraud, here are some of the “leftovers” from this edition of Fraud Week that your editor thought noteworthy.
Read about a pharmacy biller’s fake copay assistance scheme:
Genetic testing kickback schemes
In TX: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/laboratory-owners-and-executives-charged-health-care-kickback-scheme
And here’s a big one in GA: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/lab-owner-convicted-463-million-genetic-testing-scheme-defraud-medicare
DME kickback…
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on January 25 that 25 defendants have been indicted in Florida for their involvement in the sale of more than 7,600 fraudulent diplomas, and fake transcripts, from three now-closed Florida nursing schools. School officials participated in the scheme, in which aspiring nurses paid $10,000 or more for the…
The U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut recently announced that Michael Lonski, a Greenwich psychologist, pleaded guilty to healthcare fraud. Lonski admitted to billing insurers for services that were not rendered, including for deceased patients, and for dates of service when he was out of the country, or his medical partner was out of…
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on January 20 that DePuy Synthes, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, agreed to pay $9.75 million to resolve allegations that it entered into a kickback scheme with an unnamed Massachusetts orthopedic surgeon. DePuy admitted that from 2013 to 2018, it gave the surgeon instruments and implants worth…
The U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York recently announced that Morris Barnard, a Great Neck gastroenterologist, was sentenced to 30 months in jail for billing Medicare for procedures he never performed. Between 2015 and 2020, Barnard submitted over $3 million in false claims for colonoscopy and gastroenterological procedures for disabled patients living…
I don’t know how to say it any more clearly. Somehow, medical and dental practices continue to get roped into responding to negative patient reviews on Yelp, Google, or elsewhere online, and posting any identifying information about a patient is a HIPAA violation. It’s protected health information (PHI), even if the patient posted something first.
Rivkin Radler’s Michael Sirignano authored an article for the January 5 issue of the New York Law Journal entitled “An Insurance Fraud Year in Review.” The article discussed various types of healthcare fraud for which the perpetrators were sentenced in 2022.
Sign up to receive Rivkin Rounds at www.RivkinRounds.com.
On November 9, the Pharmaceutical Coalition for Patient Access (PCPA) filed an action against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) after HHS’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) determined that a proposed patient assistance model posed more than a minimal risk of fraud, waste, and abuse under the federal Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS). PCPA…
In the next installment of Rivkin Radler’s Healthcare Compliance Lunch & Learn series, Rivkin Radler’s Ben Malerba and Ben Wisher will discuss Avoiding the Pitfalls in Recent Government Enforcement. The program will cover recent audits, investigations and actions of government agencies including DOJ, MFCU, OMIG, the NY AG, and others. Ben and Ben will also…
