On November 12, University of Colorado Health (UCHealth) agreed to pay $23 million to settle Department of Justice (DOJ) and whistleblower charges of violating the False Claims Act by fraudulently billing Medicare and Tricare for certain emergency department services. According to the government, UCHealth used an automatic coding system where [...]
Legal and Regulatory Developments SPOTLIGHT: Swipe Fees Get Renewed Washington Focus in Aftermath of Election American Banker – November 12, 2024 (subscription required) Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Roger Marshall, R-Kan., will hold a long-awaited hearing on pending swipe fee legislation. Executives from Visa and Mastercard, the two card networks [...]
On November 12, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced a $4 million award to two whistleblowers under the CFTC Whistleblower Program. With this award, the agency has now issued roughly $390 million in whistleblower awards since its first award under the program in 2014. These awards have been associated [...]
Legal and Regulatory Developments SPOTLIGHT: Is Visa a Debit Monopolist? Digital Transactions Magazine – November 1, 2024 Lawsuits alleging anti-competitive practices are nothing new to Visa Inc. After all, the network, as well as MasterCard Inc., have been sued by the Department of Justice, merchants, and state attorneys general for [...]
Constantine Cannon partner Gordon Schnell published in Washington Technology on the DOJ’s stepped-up enforcement of cybersecurity fraud. DOJ’s strong message to contractors: plug all cybersecurity holes Read October 28, 2024 at constantinecannon.com
Legal and Regulatory Developments SPOTLIGHT: Chopra Defends CFPB Open Banking Rule in Face of Lawsuit Payments Dive – October 28, 2024 Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra said on Sunday that a lawsuit filed over the agency’s open banking rule finalized earlier this month is an obstacle to increasing [...]
In a recent case out of Corbin, Kentucky, former pharmacist Stephanie Collins was sentenced to 20 months in prison after being found guilty of defrauding Medicare and Medicaid by billing for medications and medical supplies she never provided to her customers, violating the False Claims Act. Operating as Stephanie’s Down Home [...]
On Wednesday (October 28), government contracting magazine Washington Technology published a commentary by Constantine Cannon whistleblower partner Gordon Schnell on the recent string of False Claims Act enforcement actions DOJ has brought against government contractors for cybersecurity failures. As Schnell points out, the most recent of these actions is last [...]
It appears there is a new name on the list of COVID relief fraudsters—Mark William Bailey, a business owner who evidently couldn’t resist misusing taxpayer-funded pandemic relief for personal luxuries, according to the DOJ this week. After misappropriating approximately $451,237.51 in COVID-19 relief funds guaranteed by the Small Business Administration [...]
Yesterday the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of Michigan announced that a licensed pharmacist from Dearborn Heights, Michigan, has been sentenced to two years in federal prison for her role in a $6.9 million scheme that defrauded Medicare, Medicaid, and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan by submitting false claims [...]
