National Whistleblower Day — July 30 — was recognized as “Whistleblower Appreciation Day” in the United States Senate. This is the fourth consecutive year that the Senate has passed a resolution recognizing the date and expressing support for whistleblowers—courageous government and private-sector workers and contractors who risk their livelihoods and reputations to expose corruption, graft and misconduct within their organizations. This date is no accident. The American tradition of supporting … [Read more...]
Implied False Certification: Supreme Court Strikes a Blow in Favor of Whistleblowers
In May, we wrote about how U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s death might impact a key whistleblower case brought under the False Claims Act. It turns out that Justice Scalia’s presence might not have made much of a difference: The eight remaining Justices came through with a significant—and unanimous—victory for whistleblower plaintiffs, and delivered a strong rebuke to government contractors that would defraud taxpayers through misleading omissions and then evade responsibility by … [Read more...]
New York False Claims Act: A Major Victory Under Its Tax Fraud Provision
The New York Court of Appeals handed the state’s Attorney General a big victory in 2015 in a case involving tax fraud under the New York False Claims Act. New York’s highest court ruled that the Attorney General may proceed with a lawsuit against Sprint for knowingly defying a state tax law that requires telecom companies to collect sales tax on the entirety of flat-rate contracts with its mobile customers.The lawsuit alleges that Sprint initially complied with the law, which was enacted in … [Read more...]
The False Claims Act and the Supreme Court: What Justice Scalia’s Death Means
With Justice Antonin Scalia’s death on February 13, 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court will continue to hear and decide cases with only eight justices. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, has said that the Senate will neither hold hearings nor vote on a replacement for Justice Scalia until after President Obama leaves office on January 20, 2017. Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee have echoed McConnell’s position. How the Supreme Court Functions With Eight Justices The … [Read more...]
Upcoding in Medical Billing: Why the Switch to ICD-10 Is Not a Cure-All for Healthcare Fraud
The switch to ICD-10 was expected to make upcoding in medical billing harder. First, some background: The World Health Organization is the public health arm of the United Nations. Since 1948, WHO has been responsible for updating the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), a worldwide system for collecting, processing, classifying and processing statistics about diseases. The most recent version of the ICD is ICD-10, or tenth edition, which WHO published in 1999. How ICD Codes Are Used … [Read more...]