Bass, Berry & Sims attorney Brian Roark discussed the trends related to False Claims Act (FCA) settlements in the home health sector, as revealed in the Healthcare Fraud & Abuse Settlements Database which the firm launched earlier this year. The database was part of the comprehensive Healthcare Fraud & Abuse Resource Center that provides an overview of FCA enforcement settlements, court decisions, updates involving the Stark Law and Anti-Kickback Statute, and other developments affecting the healthcare industry.
“We wanted to create a database of False Claims Act settlements to allow providers to have easy access to information, to see the cases that the government or regulators have resolved in the health care fraud space,” Brian told Home Health Care News. “This is the first publicly available database of this type.”
According to the information in the database, home health providers have paid at least $422.6 million since 2012 to settle FCA allegations. This represents 51 different cases over the time period from 2012-2020.
“There continues to be a lot of enforcement action around business development and marketing,” Brian added. “You see cases that involve allegations that home health providers were providing gifts, meals and entertainment to either hospital case managers or doctors, or allegations that home health companies were providing services to hospitals or doctors at below-fair-market value in exchange for referrals.”
The full article, “Home Health Providers Have Paid $422M to Settle False Claims Act Cases Since 2012,” was published by Home Health Care News on July 13 and is available online.