DALLAS (October 28, 2010) – AARP Foundation Litigation (“AFL”) attorneys are  joining forces as co-counsel with national law firm Baron & Budd, P.C. and Stein, Mitchell & Muse in a medical device whistleblower lawsuit involving the aggressive marketing of off-label use of vascular stents.  AARP seeks to curb health care fraud, a major contributing factor [...]

The Law Project for Psychiatric Rights, an Alaska mental health advocacy group, has sued several Alaska child psychiatrists under the federal False Claims Act. The whistleblower organization, which has fought the pharmaceutical industry for years, claims that doctors committed Medicaid fraud by unnecessarily drugging children with medications not approved for the prescribed purposes. The suit [...]

Blackwater Worldwide, the already notorious private security company hired by the government in Iraq and Afghanistan, has been sued by two of its former employees in a False Claims Act lawsuit originally filed in December 2008. The ex-workers allege that for years the company has filed fraudulent receipts, double billed for services and charged the [...]

Southern New Hampshire Medical Center has paid a settlement to resolve possible False Claims Act charges alleging that a hospital employee was improperly paid with funds from federal health care programs. The government’s investigation centered on a licensed nursing assistant hired by the hospital through numerous temporary employment agencies from February 2002 to September 2007. [...]

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley has filed suit under that state’s False Claims Act against a limousine company that allegedly evaded paying higher commercial tolls by using personal or carpool transponders at Fast Lane toll machines on the Massachusetts Turnpike. The A.G.’s lawsuit against Wakefield-based Northeastern Limousine was one of three similar suits filed against [...]

Atricure Inc., a medical device manufacturer based in West Chester, Ohio, has settled a False Claims Act suit with the United States government. The manufacturer has agreed to pay a handsome amount to resolve charges that it improperly marketed its surgical ablation devices to treat atrial fibrillation. Surgical ablation devices work by focusing energy on [...]

Dr. Mehmood Patel, an interventional cardiologist formerly practicing in Lafayette, Louisiana, has been sued by the United States in a False Claims Act suit asking for treble damages and penalties. The lawsuit claims that Dr. Patel performed medically unnecessary cardiovascular procedures and then billed Medicare for it. Dr. Patel has already been convicted on 51 [...]

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the False Claims Act does not prevent a defendant who settles with the government without admitting liability from suing third parties whom the defendant asserts are responsible for any alleged violations. In the case on appeal, the defendant was Cell Therapeutics Inc. (“CTI”), which developed a [...]

In the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2009, the United States recovered $2.4 billion in judgments and settlements from lawsuits alleging fraud against the government. Historically, this is the second largest annual recovery from claims involving civil fraud. Since 1986, when the civil False Claims Act was substantially strengthened, the government has recouped more than [...]

The United States has settled with a New Jersey hospital named by a whistleblower in a Medicare fraud suit and has sought to intervene in the same case against a New York facility. The government will receive a sizable settlement from Trinitas Regional Medical Center in Elizabeth, N.J. and will pursue claims against Brookhaven Memorial [...]