In a January 10, 2019 decision, the US District Court for the District of Arizona granted summary judgment to Defendants because Relators failed to raise a genuine issue of material fact on the issue of “knowledge” under the False Claims Act (FCA) which, as everyone knows by now, includes deliberate ignorance or reckless disregard. The decision is significant for the simple fact that courts can be reluctant to address scienter on summary judgment, and in many cases prefer to simply let the issue go to trial. Moreover, the court’s opinion makes clear that corrections to claiming issues and improvements to systems that result in better claims submission do not function as evidence of knowledge or recklessness under the FCA. In tort law parlance, “remedial measures” are not evidence of fraud.

In Vassallo v. Rural/Metro Corp., a qui tam lawsuit in which the government declined to intervene (but filed a statement of interest attempting to support the Relator’s opposition to summary judgment), the allegations primarily concerned Defendants’ transition from using internal coders to an outside coding vendor to code claims for ambulance transports. There were some alleged issues with the coding performed by the outside coding company, which Defendants worked to improve and correct during and after the transition. Notably, Defendants had been operating under a Corporate Integrity Agreement (CIA) during the time period at issue, and consistently received positive results from the Internal Review Organization (IRO) with respect to coding, billing and claims submission.

The district court held that no reasonable jury could have found that Defendants acted with deliberate indifference or reckless disregard. Relators contended, among other things, that Defendants’ transition to the outside coding vendor was reckless, and that they completed the transition despite knowing about the vendor’s coding and billing errors and issues. In response, Defendants pointed to evidence regarding their training and oversight efforts, their instructions that the vendor’s coders should undercode if they had any doubt about the correct code to be used, their positive results under the CIA, and their retention of Deloitte to address any continued issues with the vendor’s coding. (more…)