Medicare and Medicaid

New York State’s Medicaid Home Care program pays for in-home personal care services. New York’s program has long been the best in the country.  One underlying policy behind the program was that people should have every opportunity to remain in the community.  A community focus provides two benefits: the social benefit derived from keeping people…

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…

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…

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…

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…

On July 2, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced the formation of the DOJ-HHS False Claims Act Working Group to strengthen “their ongoing collaboration to advance priority enforcement areas” in combating healthcare fraud. The two agencies cited the long history of partnership between them in enforcing…

The Nassau County District Attorney recently charged Joseph Golyan, a Great Neck gastroenterologist, with collecting Social Security and other government benefits over a four-year period, while simultaneously billing Medicare for care he was providing to Medicare beneficiaries. He allegedly collected over $100,000 in disability benefits, while billing Medicare over $700,000, during the relevant period. The…

Last month, the head of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Matthew R. Galeotti, issued a Memorandum outlining DOJ’s enforcement priorities and policies for prosecuting white-collar crime, identifying three core tenets to guide prosecutors: “(1) focus; (2) fairness; and (3) efficiency.”

Among the areas of focus listed, the Memorandum identified as…

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently published a press release rescinding its June 2022 guidance concerning hospitals’ obligations to pregnant women under the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act (EMTALA). EMTALA is a federal law that requires hospitals to provide emergency care to all patients, regardless of their ability to pay.

The…

Two Pennsylvania nursing home operators were recently sentenced in federal court to pay more than $15 million in restitution in a healthcare fraud case. Comprehensive Healthcare Management Services, the operator of Brighton Rehabilitation and Wellness Center, and the affiliated operator of Mount Lebanon Rehabilitation and Wellness Center were convicted of making false statements in connection…