False Claims Act Update & Alert
	Taxpayers Against Fraud Education Fund | Washington, D.C. | WWW.TAF.ORG           November 23, 2011
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		Subscribe to this FREE Newsletter Enter your Email Powered by FeedBlitz n TAF Home Page n Previous Newsletters n Email editor   Please take a moment to forward this FREE electronic newsletter to others that might be interested!	Sandoz to Pay $150 Million Sandoz has agreed to pay $150 million to settle a False Claims Act case originated by Ven-a-Care of the Florida Keys, a specialty pharmacy in Florida that has helped recover $3 billion back to the U.S. Government and the states. The Medicaid best price case was filed in 2000, but never joined by DoJ.  Of the $150 million to be paid, $75 million is allocated to California, $38.888 million to Florida, and $35.1111 million to the Federal Government and other states. >> To read more
			Merck to Pay $950 Million Merck, the second-largest drug maker in the U.S., says it will pay $950 million to settle charges related to illegal marketing of the painkiller Vioxx. A subsidiary, Merck Sharp & Dohme, will plead guilty to one count of misbranding and pay a criminal fine of $321.6 million.  Of the $628.3 million paid to resolve civil claims, $426.4 million will go to the federal government and almost $202 million will go the states. Seven states continue to litigate over money owed their state Medicaid programs. >> To read more
			Pfizer Pays to Block Generic Lipitor Pfizer has found a new business model based on payola and price-gouging rather than providing quality health care at a reasonable price.  The new gambit:  paying pharmacy benefit managers, like Medco, to block generic versions of drugs such as Lipitor. >> To read more
			Looking at Lab Fraud Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-MT) and ranking GOP Senate Judiciary Committee member Charles Grassley (R-IA), are looking into how health insurers steer Medicare and Medicaid laboratory testing to labs in exchange for discounts or payments for non-Medicare work. This type of "pull through" fraud was recently exposed by Chris Riedel of Hunter Labs, who helped California recover hundreds of millions of dollars last year. Another whistle-blower lawsuit alleging similar pull-through practices by LabCorp and UnitedHealth Group was unsealed in August in the Southern District of New York. >> To read more
			Contract Fraud Fighting Is a Joke The Washington Post reports that despite a decade's worth of failure under various names, contractors paid hundreds of millions of dollars to find fraud in the Medicare and Medicaid programs cannot seem to do the job very well.
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