FCA State

August 11, 2020

The former owner of Texas-based All Smiles Dental Center has been ordered to pay $16.5 million to the State of Texas for improperly billing Texas Medicaid for tens of millions of dollars in services that he did not deliver, including services allegedly performed while he was vacationing abroad.  In total, Dr. Richard Malouf was found to have committed 1,842 unlawful acts under the Texas Medicaid Fraud Prevention Act.  AG TX

Cell Phone Carriers - Procurement Fraud ($138.7 million)

Constantine Cannon represented a whistleblower in a series of state False Claims Act cases alleging the four major wireless carriers -- AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile -- overcharged the government by failing to provide services at the lowest cost available as required in their government contracts.  In September 2020, the carriers agreed to collectively pay $138.7 million to settle the matter, one of the largest state False Claims Act settlements ever.  Our client received a whistleblower award of roughly $55 million.  Read more -- LA Times, CBS, PR Newswire, CC.

July 30, 2020

Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), now known as DXC Technology, and New York City have agreed to pay approximately $2.8 million to resolve allegations of violating the federal and New York State False Claims Acts in connection with New York City’s Early Intervention Program (EIP), which provides speech and physical therapy services for infants and toddlers with possible developmental disabilities.  According to a qui tam lawsuit, while retained by the City to process and submit its EIP claims to various insurers, CSC allegedly received permission from the City to categorize claims submitted to private insurers as “denied” if no response was received within 90 days.  CSC then resubmitted those claims to Medicaid using an improper code, causing Medicaid to make payments it would not have otherwise.  For revealing the misconduct, the unnamed whistleblower in this case will receive $416,250.  AG NY; USAO SDNY

July 22, 2020

Tony Garrett Taylor has been sentenced to 8 years in prison and ordered to pay over $6 million to the North Carolina Medicaid program and over $1 million to the IRS after pleading guilty to committing healthcare fraud and tax evasion.  Along with his brother, Jerry Lewis Taylor, the defendant conspired to use outpatient behavioral health services companies owned and operated by the brothers to submit false claims to Medicaid for services that were either never provided or misrepresented.  Jerry Lewis Taylor has also pleaded guilty and is currently awaiting sentencing.  AG NC

July 21, 2020

The Montachusett Regional Transit Authority (MART), a quasi-public transportation authority that brokers medical transportation, will pay $300,000 to resolve allegations that it improperly caused false claims to be submitted to MassHealth, the Massachusetts state Medicaid program. MART allegedly did not have appropriate procedures in place to verify that its transportation subcontractors had actually provided rides as they claimed, and MART billed MassHealth for thousands of rides that were not, in fact, provided. MA; USAO MA

July 13, 2020

The owner and operator of a skilled nursing facility has agreed to pay $1 million to settle allegations of submitting false claims to Medi-Cal in violation of the California False Claims Act.  According to the Attorney General, Legacy Post-Acute Rehabilitation Center (Legacy) failed to provide the minimum number of nursing hours required for the level of care that it billed for.  AG CA