Category: News

Grimm’s Whistleblower Improvement Act of 2011 The proposed H.R. 2483, known as The Whistleblower Improvement Act of 2011 is poised to move through congress this year, and was recently approved by a subpanel of the House Financial Services Committee.It is now under consideration by the full committee.The bill, introduced in July 2011 by Rep. Michael...

Whistleblowers Provide Backbone to Case Against Healthcare Fraud On Thursday, September 1, the Department of Justice reported that the United States government had settled a False Claims case with Janzen, Johnston & Rockwell Emergency Medicine Management Services Inc. (JJ&R), which is a provider of billing services for physicians, hospitals and other health care providers. JJ&R...

Fear of Political Pressure Influences IRS Resistance to Whistleblower Cases In recent years, whistleblower cases have proven to be essential to the battle against tax fraud in the United States. In 2006, Congress passed a provision that would allow citizens to file claims with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to recover lost tax revenue that...

Scathing GAO Report on Whistleblowers Prompts New Pressure on IRS In September 2011, the Governmental Accountability Office released its review of the progress being made toward a more efficient whistleblower program within the Internal Revenue Service. The review showed that immediately there was a positive public reaction to the program, with thousands of new whistleblowers...

GAO Report Wants More Time-Efficient IRS Whistleblower Program In August 2011, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) published its conclusions on the effectiveness of the Internal Revenue Service’s whistleblower program and how it could be improved. This program was a part of the newly expanded whistleblower legislation that passed Congress as the Tax Relief and Health...

Oracle Pays $200 Million in False Claims Act Settlement When will Oracle learn? In October 2011, the software giant has agreed to pay $200 million to the U.S. government in response to allegations that the company was overcharging the federal government, specifically the General Services Administration (GSA), for products that were sold at a cheaper...

False Claims Act Violations Lead to Industry-Wide Protections This past week, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services finally released the proposed rule that would require drug and device companies to report publically any gifts or payments given to doctors and medical professionals. The rule was written in response to the passage of the Physician...

Kickbacks between Insurers and Labs Raise Anti-Fraud Ire Recently, United States Senators Max Baucus and Charles Grassley, known standard-bearers in the fight against fraud, opened an investigation into the Medicare practices between certain health insurers and clinical laboratories. The point of conflict revolves around the practice referred to as “pulling through,” which means that health...