False Claims Act Recoveries Top $5.6 Billion in 2021
In 2021, the United States government recovered more than $5.6 billion in False Claims Act
recoveries. A good deal of this money came from so-called “qui tam” law suits filed by private citizens.
Those with winning cases typically received between 15%-25% of the recovered amount, some even got
as much as 30%.
As has been true for a number of years, the lion’s share of the False Claims Act settlements and
judgments arose from healthcare fraud cases, mostly involving Medicare and Medicaid, and to a lesser
extent Tricare and Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) program. We expect that trend to continue
for the foreseeable future, including in the Medicare Part C, Medicare Advantage Program, where “risk
factor gaming” has become more prevalent. Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS) and Stark Law violations for
improper referrals are also likely to loom larger. Of course, there will likely be no shortage of
unnecessary procedures, upcoding and billing for services not rendered cases.
With the trillions of dollars handed out during the COVID pandemic, one should also expect to
see any number of schemes where undeserving companies and organizations, as well as individuals, got
Stimulus money, PPP loans, CARES Act funds and Provider Relief money to which they were not entitled.
While this is not an exhaustive list of types of fraud cases heading our way, we do also want to
mention the government’s Cybersecurity Initiative, which aims to tackle the problem of hacking and
theft of government and government contractor data and the failure of those responsible for thwarting
these attacks. This is just one of the many types of procurement fraud the False Claims Act addresses,
along with more traditional defense industry and grant fraud.
If you think might have information about these and other types of potential qui tam False
Claims Act cases, you should immediately contact an experience whistleblower lawyer
