The New York Attorney General’s office recently announced an agreement with MVP Health Care under which the insurer will pay $250,000 in penalties, fees, and costs to the state for maintaining an inaccurate mental health provider directory. The settlement is the first arising out of an investigation of so-called “ghost networks” by Attorney General Letitia
Litigation
DOJ Statement of Interest Filed Prohibiting Dysphoria Medical Coverage
The U.S. Department of Justice recently issued a press release concerning a Statement of Interest that shields small businesses from being forced to provide medical coverage for gender dysphoria.
In Bernier v. Turbocam et al., the Plaintiff, who identifies as a woman and has been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, claims denial of “medically necessary”…
Flo Health Data-Sharing Case Ends in Major Jury Verdict Against Meta
Meta Inc., the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has been found liable by a California federal jury for improperly using sensitive reproductive health data to run targeted ads, in a case involving the popular Flo Health period-tracking app. Eight women brought the lawsuit on behalf of a class of up to 38 million…
Aspen Dental Settles Data-Sharing Class Action
Dental service organization (DSO) Aspen Dental has agreed to pay $18.7 million to resolve claims that it secretly shared web user data with Meta and Google, without obtaining users’ consent or informing them.
The claims are part of a class action lawsuit brought against Aspen Dental in Illinois State Court, accusing the DSO of violating…
The Feds Have Home Care Kickback Arrangements in Their Crosshairs
The federal government has demonstrated that it is more than willing to use the United States criminal code to prosecute home care agencies that pay unlawful financial inducements to generate referrals in violation of the Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS).
In a superseding indictment unsealed in March 2025, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District…
DOJ Targeting Healthcare for False Claims Act Enforcement
An article in the August issue of Healthcare Risk Management, “DOJ Targeting Healthcare for False Claims Act Enforcement,” discussed recent enforcement activity by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) under the False Claims Act (FCA). Rivkin Radler’s Jeff Kaiser was quoted in the article.
Jeff predicted that the FCA will continue to…
Expert Witness Report in FCA Case Afflicted with AI Hallucinations
The epidemic of out-of-control generative artificial intelligence in litigation filings has metastasized to a False Claims Act (FCA) lawsuit against a group of Utah anesthesiologists. On July 25, Mountain West Anesthesia, LLC and individual defendants in the case moved to bar the testimony of a medical billing expert whose report was riddled with AI-generated errors…
NY Medical Transport Owner Sentenced for Medicaid Fraud
The owner of Sublime Medical Transportation in Schenectady County, New York was recently sentenced to three to nine years in state prison for orchestrating a large Medicaid fraud scheme. Muhammed Adnan Saeed netted over $700,000, along with more than $60,000 in unemployment benefits to which he was not entitled.
Between 2019 and 2023, Saeed routinely…
Cigna Sues Bristol Myers Squibb Alleging Scheme to Block Generic Drug
Cigna filed a lawsuit on June 24 in Manhattan federal court accusing Bristol Myers Squibb of unlawfully blocking generic versions of its blood cancer drug, Pomalyst, from entering the market. The suit also names Celgene, a Bristol Myers subsidiary that originally developed and marketed the drug. Cigna alleges that Celgene violated U.S. antitrust laws by…
OCR Announces $800,000 HIPAA Settlement with Florida Health System
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has announced another settlement for alleged violations of HIPAA. OCR investigated BayCare Health System, which serves central Florida, after a patient complained to OCR in 2018 that her medical record was accessed by an unauthorized individual.
The patient told OCR that she…
