As of September 30, 2006
FY 2006 False Claims Act Settlements
The cases below represent a "running tally" of False Claims Act cases compiled by the Taxpayers Against Fraud Education Fund for Fiscal Year 2006.
Listed below are 95 False Claims Act cases that were resolved in FY 2006.
The 95 False Claims Act cases settled or brought to judgment in FY 2006 yielded a total of more than $3.166 billion.
31 cases were settled or resolved for a sum of $2 million or less.
6 cases were settled or resolved for a sum of $100 million or more.
Many of the largest False Claims Act cases settled in FY 2006 were settled for fractional damages. For example, Tenet is estimated to have stolen $1,900,000,000 dollars, but is only repaying $900 million dollars; St. Barnabas Health Systems is estimated to have stolen $630 million to $700 million, but is only repaying $265 million; Financier Mario Gabelli and associates made more than $200 million in profit from the sale of illegally obtained bandwidth, but are only repaying $130 million.
To compare these results to last year's statistics >> click here
Company Amount in Millions $ Date Nature of the fraud Medicare Medicaid Tenet Healthcare 900 06/29/06 A global settlement of a wide variety of health care frauds including outlier payment violations, kickbacks, and upcoding DRG's. x x Serono 567 10/17/05 Illegally marketing Serostim, an anti-wasting growth hormone sold to AIDS patients. Scam involved non-FDA approved computer software and machines to calculate body mass to falsely diagnose AIDS wasting; off-label marketing of Serostim, and; kickbacks to physicians and specialty pharmacies to get them to prescribe or recommend Serostim. Total settlement of $704 includes criminal fine. X Schering Plough 435
08/29/06
Off-label marketing and best price violations for Temodar, Intron-A, K-Dur, Claritin RediTabs X Saint Barnabas Hospitals of West Orange, New Jersey 265 06/15/06 Saint Barnabas Hospitals billed "outlier" payments which were based on fraudulently inflated charges. X Mario Gabelli and Lynch Interactive 130 06/13/06 FCC Bandwidth fraud -- billionaire masquerading as a "small business" King Pharmaceutical 124 11/01/05 Violation of Medicaid prescription drug "best price" regulations and the underpayment of rebates for the drugs Altace, Aplisol, Lorabid, and Fluogen. King Pharmaceutical was giving price breaks to pharmacy benefit management companies (PBMs) that it was not giving to the U.S. Government X Beth Israel Hospital 72 12/01/05 Hospital billed Medicare for non-reimbursable costs. X X Peter Rogan / Edgewater Medical Center (not qui tam case, court verdict) 64.2 09/30/06 Paying kickbacks to physicians for patient referrals. X X Tenet (Redding) and Dr. Fidel Realvasquez, Dr. Kent Brusett, Dr. Ricardo Javier Moreno-Cabral, Dr. Chae Moon 62.55 11/15/05 Tenet doctors performed unnecessary heart surgeries at the Redding Medical Center in Redding, California X ABN AMRO Mortgage Group, Inc. (ABN), 42 01/05/06 Made false certifications to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in connection with 28,097 federally insured mortgages Erlanger Medical Center 40 10/05/05 Kickback and false billing by Tennessee hospital. Federal officials contended they had $120 million in valid claims against Erlanger X X Navigant Consulting Inc (California FCA case) -arbitration ruling 37 09/18/06 Electric distribution maintenance services Pediatrix 25.1 09/22/06 Overbilled Medicaid and TriCare for baby and infant care. X Balfour Beatty Construction, Inc. 24.75 10/10/05 Several contractors to Amtrak cheated the Government by inflating bills for installing the poles and an electrical power system used on the tracks between New Haven, Connecticut and Boston. Robert I. Bourseau, Dr. Rudra Sabaratnam,
RIB Medical Management Services, Inc., and Navatkuda, Inc.24 9/19/06 Judgment. Manipulation of Medicare cost reports at a psychiatric hospital in Chula Vista,
CaliforniaX Tenet San Diego ** 21 05/17/06 Kickbacks to physicians (may be mostly criminal settlement). X X Beverly (under U.S. and Calif. FCA) 20 08/22/06 Beverly subsidiary MK Medical submitted false DME claims for payment to the Medicare and Medi-Cal programs from 1998 until 2002, . X X York County PA 18.5 04/27/06 County overbilled Dept. of Homeland Security for immigration detention. BearingPoint 15 01/03/06 Overbilled the government for travel expenses and did not disclose rebates. Horizon West Inc. and Horizon West Healthcare Inc. 14.7 09/26/06 Falsely inflated the number of nursing hours spent on Medicare patients X University Hospitals of Cleveland 14 08/22/06 University Hospitals of Cleveland, entered into improper financial arrangements with physicians to motivate them to make referrals to other doctors within the system in Medicare cases. X Odyssey HealthCare 13.5 07/11/06 Billed Medicare for services provided to hospice patients who were not terminally ill and therefore were ineligible for the Medicare hospice benefit. X Hunt Valve 13.2 11/01/2005 Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics Electric Boat and other defendants failed to stop obvious quality and fraud problems at Hunt Valve, a key maker of parts used in nuclear submarines and nuclear waste storage tanks. Fluor Corp. 12.5 11/04/05 Knowingly overbilled the Departments of Energy and Defense for overhead not used in federal projects, including buildings and parking lots rented to other companies General Electric 11.5 07/25/06 Turbine Matria 10 03/08/06 Diabetes company billed Medicare for unapproved durable medical equipment claims, double billed, and did not credit Medicare for returned goods that were never ordered. X Custer Battles 10 03/10/06 Contract fraud in Iraq involving the Iraqi money exchange program. Lincare 10 05/24/06 Home oxygen company paid kickbacks to doctors. X X AGE Refining 9 08/09/06 False certification of SBA HUBZone compliance in order to get government fuels contract. Baxter International 8.5 06/13/06 Baxter International falsely reported prices of drugs to the Texas Medicaid system. X State of Indiana 8.3 06/29/06 E-rate fraud. Indiana Intelenet Commission (now defunct) inflated prices, falsified invoices, engaged in non-competitive bid practices, and did not contribute the state share. Intrepid U.S.A. 8 02/09/06 Home health company fraudulently overbilled Medicare, Medicaid, and TRICARE/CHAMPUS X X Staples 7.4 10/18/05 Company submitted false claims when it sold office products to the U.S. Government that were not permitted by a General Services Administration (GSA) contract that required all covered office products to be made in countries covered by the Trade Agreements Act. Tenet Florida 7 02/21/06 Settlement of false outlier payment claims in Florida. X Corporate Express 5 02/10/06 Company submitted false claims when it sold office supply products manufactured in countries not permitted by the Trade Agreements Act Clark Atlanta University 5 04/14/06 University received money from the Department of Energy to train a new minority workforce in environmental scientists, but did not use the money for that purpose Evertec 4.8 10/24/05 Company defrauded the E-Rate program which is designed to subsidize bringing the internet to public schools in poor area. Highmark 4.5 06/27/06 Medicare secondary payer X Ernst & Young LLP 4.47 01/03/06 Overbilled t