Blog - Archive for Health Care Law News

HHS-OCR recently announced two HIPAA violation settlements with significant financial penalties in the space of a week, and both covered entities and business associates should take notice.  First was the settlement involving Lahey Clinic Hospital, Inc. (Lahey), which agreed to a settlement that stemmed from a 2011 incident where an unencrypted laptop was stolen from Read more →

Tags : HIPAA compliance

On October 30, 2015, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued important changes to the Stark regulations. CMS also added two new Stark exceptions – one for hospital incentive payments for recruitment of non-physician practitioners, and the other changed certain rules for physician owned hospitals, including how the percentage of physician ownership will Read more →

Tags : Florida Healthcare Law

In 1986 the Civil False Claims Act (“FCA”) was amended to increase penalties from $2,000 to between $5,000 and $10,000 per false claim. In 1999, the penalties were raised to their present level of between $5,500 and $11,000 per false claims.  As a result of budget legislation just passed, the FCA penalties as well as Read more →

Tags : Civil False Claim Act

Only weeks after Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates announced that the government was going to take a harder line against individuals in corporate fraud cases, the government has charged the former CEO of Warner Chilcott. Carl Reichel was arrested in connection with a health care fraud, false claims and kickback investigation that has also lead Read more →

Tags : Health Care Fraud

For what appears to be the first time, a False Claims Act whistleblower who received a reward in connection with the False Claims Act case also received a share of a subsequent CMP imposed by the HHS-OIG in a related enforcement action. As background, the False Claims Act case had been brought against Jack Baker, Read more →

Tags : False Claims Act