DOJ Attorneys Comment on the Rise of Telehealth Fraud During the COVID-19 Pandemic - During the 2022 Qui Tam Conference of the Federal Bar Association, DOJ attorneys.
The False Claims Act will increasingly be wielded against bogus billing for telehealth services that surged in popularity amid COVID-19, but the law's use has been hindered by complex and sophisticated fraud schemes, U.S. Department of Justice attorneys said Wednesday.
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During a question-and-answer session following his opening
remarks at the Federal Bar Association Qui Tam Conference earlier
this year, Senator Chuck Grassley said that the government needed
to come down with a sledgehammer, not a toothpick
against fraud.
1 Senator Grassley, a co-sponsor of the
1986 Amendments to the federal False Claims Act (FCA or the Act)
and a longtime proponent of the Act and its qui tam provision, also
weighed in on some timely and controversial aspects of FCA
litigation, including the ability of the Department of Justice
DOJ Announces FY 2020 Fraud and FCA Recovery Statistics: What They Mean for 2021, January 20, 2021, Matt Feinberg and Camilla Hundley
The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it recovered more than $2.2 billion in settlements and judgments from civil cases involving fraud and the False Claims Act (FCA) in Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 (ending September 30, 2020). DOJ’s FY 2020 fraud and FCA recovery statistics report accompanied the announcement. With a global pandemic that often delayed proceedings, the $2.2 billion in recoveries was DOJ’s lowest haul since 2008. Although the announcement and report revealed a significant decline in recoveries relative to FY 2019,
DOJ’s 2020 fraud and FCA statistics confirmed that the FCA remains an effective enforcement tool about which government contractors and companies that do business with government contractors should be wary in 2021 and beyond. Read more here.