On February 4, a Vermont Superior Court judge entered a judgment of over $2.7 million against Phoenix Counseling & Wellness, PLC (Phoenix), and the company’s owner for alleged violations of the Vermont False Claims Act (VFCA). Vermont Attorney General (AG) Charity Clark and her office’s Medicaid Fraud and Residential Abuse Unit (MFRAU) received complaints regarding the quality of care and maintenance of patient treatment records by Phoenix.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and 18 state attorneys general (AG) announced a settlement with Boston-based QOL Medical, LLC (QOL) and its CEO, Frederick Cooper, to resolve allegations that the company provided unlawful kickbacks to health care providers. Under the terms of the settlement, QOL and Cooper agreed to pay $47 million to resolve allegations that QOL manipulated health care providers into prescribing a drug called Sucraid — an FDA-approved therapy for a rare genetic disorder, Congenital Sucrase-Isomaltase Deficiency (CSID). Regulators alleged that QOL and Cooper violated the Anti-Kickback Statute and federal and state False Claims Acts.
Newly Signed Massachusetts Law Ramps up Regulation and AG Liability for Private Equity Investments in Health Care
This month, two attorneys general (AGs) have settled False Claims Act investigations with two separate companies in the health care industry. Both settlements were notable in their own right.
Massachusetts Attorney General (AG) Andrea Joy Campbell announced a $4 million settlement with Next Step Healthcare, LLC (Next Step), a Massachusetts-based long-term care management company, in a deal that the AG described as the largest-ever nursing home settlement in Massachusetts. According to the AG’s announcement, Next Step operates 16 nursing homes in Massachusetts.
North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of North Carolina have reached a $500,000 settlement with Sharon Raynes Halliday and RAPHA Healthcare Services LLC, resolving a false claims lawsuit filed in July 2022 related to requests for payment submitted to the North Carolina Medicaid program.
On September 8, the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) Chief Administrative Law Judge D. Michael Chappell issued an initial decision ruling that Intuit Inc. (Intuit) “engaged in deceptive advertising in violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act” by misleading consumers with its “free” service claims. In the decision, which is subject to appeal to the full commission, Judge Chappell found that Intuit deceptively marketed TurboTax, its online tax preparation filing software, “when it ran ads for ‘free’ tax products and services for which many consumers were ineligible.”
California Attorney General Rob Bonta, in partnership with the Department of Justice, announced two settlements with providers for Medi-Cal (California’s Medicaid program), following allegations under state and federal false claims acts that the providers submitted fraudulent claims to the government from 2014 through 2016. Consequently, Dignity Health, Twin Cities Community Hospital, and Sierra Vista Regional
On December 8, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) issued a statement regarding its intent to investigate certain participants in the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) created by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.[1] This announcement, just a few months after the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced its first-ever False Claims
In 2020, two Las Vegas communications consultants brought a lawsuit against a group of top online booking companies. The complaint alleges that the defendant travel companies avoided paying hundreds of millions of dollars in hotel room taxes by buying the rooms at discounted prices, selling them to consumers at higher rates, and then, paying taxes