Qui Tam

The federal False Claims Act allows people to bring lawsuits against individuals and companies whom they believe committed fraud against the government’s coffers. These cases are also referred to as whistleblower claims. Often, the person bringing the claim is an employee of the company that the whistleblower claim is against. The qui tam provision of the False Claims Act allows this individual to collect a between 15% and 25% of the recovery upon a successful outcome.

These cases typically revolve around government contracts and allegations of fraud or misspending. Often, they relate to:

  • Billing for unlicensed or unapproved drugs, or medical services.
  • Billing for goods and services that were never delivered or rendered.
  • Billing for marketing, lobbying or other non-contract related corporate activities.
  • Submitting false service records or samples in order to show better-than-actual performance.
  • Presenting broken or untested equipment as operational and tested.
  • Performing inappropriate or unnecessary medical procedures in order to increase Medicare reimbursement.
  • Billing for work or tests not performed.
  • Billing for premium equipment but actually providing inferior equipment.
  • Automatically running a lab test whenever the results of some other test fall within a certain range, even though the second test was not specifically
    requested.
  • Defective testing – Certifying that something has passed a test, when in fact it has not.
  • “Lick and stick” prescription rebate fraud and “marketing the spread” prescription fraud, both of which involve lying to the government about the true wholesale price of prescription drugs.
  • Unbundling – Using multiple billing codes instead of one billing code for a drug panel test in order to increase remuneration.
  • Bundling — Billing more for a panel of tests when a single test was asked for.
  • Double billing – Charging more than once for the same goods or service.
  • Upcoding – Inflating bills by using diagnosis billing codes that suggest a more expensive illness or treatment.
  • Billing for brand – Billing for brand-named drugs when generic drugs are actually provided.
  • Phantom employees and doctored time slips: Charging for employees that were not actually on the job, or billing for made-up hours in order to
    maximize reimbursements.
  • Upcoding employee work: Billing at doctor rates for work that was actually conducted by a nurse or resident intern.
  • Yield burning – skimming off the profits from the sale of municipal bonds.
  • Falsifying natural resource production records – Pumping, mining or harvesting more natural resources from public lands that is actually reported to the government.
  • Being over-paid by the government for sale of a good or service, and then not reporting that overpayment.
  • Misrepresenting the value of imported goods or their country of origin for tariff purposes.
  • False certification that a contract falls within certain guidelines (i.e. the contractor is a minority or veteran).
  • Billing in order to increase revenue instead of billing to reflect actual work performed.
  • Failing to report known product defects in order to be able to continue to sell or bill the government for the product.
  • Billing for research that was never conducted; falsifying research data that was paid for by the U.S. government.
  • Winning a contract through kickbacks or bribes.
  • Prescribing a medicine or recommending a type of treatment or diagnosis regimen in order to win kickbacks from hospitals, labs or pharmaceutical companies.
  • Forging physician signatures when such signatures are required for reimbursement from Medicare or Medicaid.

If you are an individual who is considering filing such a claim, our firm can provide you with proper guidance. We will help you initiate the claim and stand by your side throughout the process.