$9.9 Million Settlement To Resolve Allegations That Hospital System Overpaid Physicians Approved by Georgia Federal Court
Unlawful payments and arrangements between hospitals, health care providers and others generally lead to violations of the False Claims Act, the Anti-Kickback Statute and often the Stark Act. Whistleblowers have led to recovery of hundreds of millions of dollars from those violators, and many have been rightly rewarded for doing so. — Shayne Stevenson, Head of Whistleblower Practice
"On February 8, 2016, the United States District Court in the Southern District of Georgia approved the settlement agreement ending a whistleblower lawsuit initiated on March 9, 2011 against Memorial Health University Medical Center (“Memorial Medical Center”) and three affiliated entities in a case that highlights the Department of Justice’s (“DOJ”) vigorous scrutiny of physician compensation arrangements. The non-profit hospital, based in Savannah, Georgia, agreed to pay $9.89 million with $2.29 million going to the relator, the hospital’s former president and CEO, who initiated the action under the qui tam provision of the False Claims Act (“FCA”). The settlement is the largest civil healthcare fraud recovery recorded by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Georgia." Full article »
