FCA UPDATE
FCA UPDATE
Exploring Recent Developments in False Claims Act Litigation, Enforcement and Compliance
FCA UPDATE
Exploring Recent Developments in False Claims Act Litigation, Enforcement and Compliance
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Courts Weigh Appropriateness of Statistical Sampling in Ongoing Case

By on Jun 13, 2018
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On April 2, 2018, the magistrate judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of Indiana issued an order refusing qui tam relators’ request to conduct discovery related to claims submitted to Medicare on a nationwide basis in an ongoing False Claims Act (FCA) case.  Importantly, the judge considered whether statistical sampling could be used to establish liability under the FCA for multiple entities affiliated with the defendant when the alleged false claims in the relators’ complaint originated from a single location. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) subsequently submitted a statement of interest defending relators’ discovery request and the use of statistical sampling to establish liability for false claims, which the court has not yet addressed.

In the underlying qui tam case, the relators alleged that Evansville Hospital, a long-term acute care hospital in Indiana, and a physician violated the FCA by submitting claims to Medicare for medically unnecessary lengths of stay in order to maximize Medicare reimbursement. (more…)



Government Backs Down in Landmark Agape Case

By on Aug 31, 2017
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In US ex rel. Michaels v. Agape Senior Community, the Department of Justice has assented to a $275,000 settlement after having rejected a $2.5 million settlement two years ago (despite declining to intervene in the case). This case garnered substantial attention because the relators sought to employ statistical sampling to establish liability on hundreds of millions of dollars of allegedly false claims to Medicare and Medicaid.

Previously, the Fourth Circuit heard–on interlocutory appeal–argument as to (1) whether statistical sampling could be used to establish liability in a False Claims Act case; and (2) whether the government could veto a False Claims Act settlement in a case in which the government declines to intervene. The Fourth Circuit ruled that the government did possess the authority to veto a settlement in a non-intervened case, and refused to address whether sampling could be used to establish liability. We discussed the Fourth Circuit’s decision here.

Although the Fourth Circuit declined to reach the question of whether False Claims Act plaintiffs can establish liability by using statistical sampling, the presiding district court judge had already concluded that plaintiffs could not do so. Having represented to the court that they could not marshal the resources to establish liability on a claim-by-claim basis, the court granted partial summary judgment on the vast majority of claims at issue. The relators subsequently settled for the value of the claims originally at issue: approximately one percent of the claims at issue in this case and 11 percent of what the relators and defendants previously agreed to.

The Fourth Circuit was to be the first appellate court to address the sampling issue, and this case demonstrates the importance of this issue. Where plaintiffs in this arena may lack sufficient resources to prove their cases on a claim-by-claim basis, the use of statistical sampling makes it far more cost-effective to prosecute their cases. If appellate courts rule on this issue in the future, and in favor of defendants, such rulings will deprive plaintiffs of this potential shortcut. This would appropriately limit plaintiffs’ recovery to claims plaintiffs actually prove are false by a preponderance of the evidence.



Fourth Circuit Declines to Address FCA Sampling Dispute as “Issue of Fact” While Affirming That United States Has “Unreviewable Veto Power” to Deny Settlements

By on Feb 21, 2017
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On February 14, 2017, after nearly two years of appellate proceedings, the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit declined to address the substance of an appeal related to the use of statistical sampling to prove liability in a False Claims Act (FCA) case in United States ex rel. Michaels, et al. v. Agape Senior Community, Inc., et al. (4th Cir., Case No 15-2145). In the same opinion, the appellate court affirmed the district court’s holding that the Attorney General has the power to veto settlements between relators and FCA defendants, even when the United States has elected not to intervene in the case.

We have been reporting on the developments in this high-profile FCA case as it has proceeded in the Fourth Circuit. From the Court’s acceptance of the appeal, to a summary of opening briefs, to amicus briefs filed by hospital trade associations, to the oral arguments last fall, we have keenly followed this case because of its potentially far-reaching implications for FCA defendants. (more…)



Oral Arguments Held In Closely Watched Agape Case

By on Oct 28, 2016
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On October 26, 2016, the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held oral arguments in United States ex rel. Michaels v. Agape Senior Community, Inc. In this case, the relators alleged that the defendants caused the submission of false claims for hospice reimbursement. The Medicare regulations governing the hospice benefit require physicians to certify that the patient seeking the benefit have a terminal illness with a prognosis of six months or fewer. The relators allege that those certifications were false.

At the district court, the relators had sought to use statistical sampling to establish liability. After the district court concluded—in the context of a discovery dispute—that it would not permit the relators to use statistical sampling to prove their case, the parties engaged in mediation efforts. The relators and defendants reached a settlement, but the government objected. The district court then certified for interlocutory appeal two issues: (1) whether the government has an unreviewable power to veto a False Claims Act settlement; and (2) whether statistical sampling can be used to establish liability.

At the oral arguments, the Fourth Circuit panel was somewhat skeptical to the notion that it could even conduct an interlocutory review the district court’s ruling on statistical sampling, noting that the district court made an evidentiary ruling that it could have revisited later in the proceedings, including at trial.

(more…)



Hospital Trade Associations Side with Agape in Fourth Circuit Appeal, Urging the Court to Reject Use of Statistical Sampling to Prove Liability in FCA Cases

By on Apr 13, 2016
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In late March, three major health care trade associations filed amicus briefs in support of the defendant-appellees in U.S. ex rel. Michaels v. Agape Senior Community, et al., Record No. 15-2145 (4th Cir.).  As we have previously reported, the relator in Agape is pursuing an interlocutory appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit regarding the use of statistical sampling to prove False Claims Act (FCA) liability.  In their respective briefs, the American Hospital Association (AHA), Catholic Health Association (CHA) and American Health Care Association (AHCA), did not mince words – a reversal of the District Court’s ruling that sampling cannot be used to prove FCA liability would have catastrophic consequences for the thousands of hospitals and health care providers throughout the United States.

In their joint brief, AHA and CHA noted that their member hospitals “submit thousands of claims to Medicare and Medicaid every day based on physicians’ medical judgments about patient conditions and courses of treatment.”  On behalf of its members, AHA and CHA affirmed that “statistical analyses are no substitute for the on-the-ground medical context a treating physician knows, understands, and relies upon in making treatment decisions for a given patient.” The crux of the AHA/CHA argument is as follows: if the government and relators want to benefit from the treble damages and statutory penalty provisions of the FCA, then they must accept the “essential safeguard against its abuse: each claim must be separately proved.”  The alternative, suggested AHA/CHA, is a “Trial by Formula” approach that was firmly rejected by the Supreme Court of the United States in Wal-Mart Stores v. Dukes, 131 S. Ct. 2541 (2011), and further explained just last month in Tyson Foods, Inc. v. Bouaphakeo, No. 14-1146 (Mar. 22, 2016).  With the majority of FCA qui tam cases being handled by relators directly—with limited oversight from a non-intervening United States—AHA/CHA argue that allowing statistical sampling to prove FCA liability would “shortcut” a physician’s clinical judgment.  Moreover, they observe that “[p]erversely, the bigger the relator’s allegations, the lower his burden of proof would become; the result would be more health care providers forced into costly defense of meritless FCA suits and more in terrorem settlements,” diverting resources from patient care and increasing health care costs for everyone.

(more…)



Fourth Circuit to Rule on Use of Statistical Sampling to Prove FCA Liability

By on Oct 6, 2015
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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has agreed to hear an interlocutory appeal on the use of statistical sampling as a means of proving liability under the False Claims Act (FCA). While statistical methods of proof have been used with respect to damages, relatively few courts have considered whether such methods are ever appropriate to establish liability under the FCA. Thus, the court’s ruling has the potential to shape practice in this area moving forward.

The case, United States ex rel. Michaels v. Agape, concerns allegations that a network of 24 nursing homes throughout South Carolina submitted fraudulent claims to Medicare, Medicaid and Tricare for care that was not medically necessary. Due to the large volume of potentially fraudulent claims—over 50,000 claims were submitted during the relevant time period—relators sought to use statistical sampling to prove that defendants had submitted false claims. Specifically, the relators sought to have their experts review a small percentage of the claims, determine what percentage of those claims were fraudulent and extrapolate over the entire universe of submitted claims. The district court rejected the approach but certified the question for interlocutory appeal.

The district court was correct to be skeptical of statistical sampling to prove liability, and the relators will have an uphill battle to convince the appeals court that their proposed method of proof is sound.

First, as the district court noted, this is not a case where the relevant evidence is unavailable and statistical sampling presents the only possible method of proof.  In fact, all the documentation concerning the allegedly fraudulent claims exists and is fully accessible. The relators’ argument is simply that it would take too much time to review such a large volume of data. As the district court stated, such shortcuts are inappropriate in a case where the alleged fraud is that services provided were not medically necessary—a “highly fact intensive inquiry involving medical testimony after a thorough review of the detailed medical chard of each individual patient.”

Second, the use of statistical sampling is not guaranteed to shorten the trial because the defendants still retain the right to present evidence on each individual claim. To force the defense to also rely on a sample of the claims and prevent the presentation of evidence on the remainder of the individual claims would, as the defendants argued, deny them of their constitutional right to a jury trial on the facts.

The Fourth Circuit’s ruling on this issue has the potential to either settle the law in this area or open the door to speculative methods of proof in a number of areas of FCA litigation.



Use of Statistical Sampling to Establish Damages in FCA Cases Still Controversial

By on May 19, 2015
Posted In

As we previously posted, on April 28, 2015, the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida in U.S. ex rel. Ruckh v. Genoa Healthcare LLC et al, held that expert testimony based on statistical sampling was appropriate in False Claims Act (FCA) cases and could not be excluded solely due to the concern that sampling, by its nature, subverts individualized proof. The court did, however, preserve the importance of Daubert motions to assail a purported sample, noting that defects in methodology or other evidentiary defects could still result in exclusion of an expert’s sampling analysis. Given the difficulties inherent in identifying a reliable sample in FCA cases involving issues of individualized proof, effective Daubert challenges to a relator’s or the government’s sampling expert are critical when litigating in courts that are inclined to permit sampling, whether offered to prove liability or damages.

In Ruckh, the relator alleged that the defendant defrauded the United States and the State of Florida by “upcoding” and “upcharging” for services provided to patients at 53 of the defendants’ medical facilities in Florida. Plaintiffs have long tested the limits of sampling, especially in actions alleging Medicare/Medicaid fraud in which issues of individualized medical decision making are in play. The relator, Ruckh, took this practice a step further, moving to admit expert testimony based on statistical sampling, prior to a sampling analysis having actually been completed. Ruckh argued that individually analyzing each claim from all 53 facilities was impractical and unnecessary to establish damages.

The defendants responded that, among other things, the court’s ratification of Relator’s statistical sampling methodology was premature. While the court did not foreclose sampling, it agreed with the defendants on the issue of ripeness, noting that arguments that go to the weight or reliability of an expert opinion are best reserved for Daubert proceedings.

This issue is an important one, as sampling can allow a plaintiff to increase the scope of alleged and provable damages dramatically without developing robust, individualized proof of its claims. Defendants have had success attacking the kind of methodology which purports to allow plaintiffs to draw inferences over a universe of claims that covers too wide an array of services. For example, defendants have successfully attacked analyses when a given universe of claims is rife with variability in terms of provider and type of procedure, arguing that such variability undermines the reliability of extrapolating from a statistical sample. While the law on the propriety of sampling in these types of cases is unsettled, there is no question that Daubert challenges will play an important role in any FCA case in which a relator or the government attempts to rely on a sample.



A Stratified Approach to Statistical Sampling: the Limitations of LifeCare and AseraCare

By on Jan 2, 2015
Posted In

The decision last fall in United States ex rel. Martin v. LifeCare Centers of America, Inc., No. 08-cv-251, 2014 WL 4816006 (E.D. Tenn. Sept. 29, 2014), has led to considerable discussion among lawyers who litigate claims arising under the False Claims Act (FCA). This decision represents the first time any court has found statistical sampling and extrapolation sufficient to establish FCA liability. Some courts had previously endorsed the use of sampling to demonstrate damages once liability has been established. Other courts had affirmed Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) administrative decisions that applied sampling in concluding that Medicare had overpaid government contractors. But the LifeCare decision went further, denying the defendant’s motion for summary judgment relating to the government’s use of statistical sampling to show falsity – the very essence of a false claim for payment by the government.

What is particularly noteworthy about the LifeCare decision is the nature of the government’s allegations for which the Court found extrapolation appropriate. In LifeCare, the government has alleged that LifeCare, a company that operates skilled nursing facilities, billed Medicare for medically unnecessary rehabilitation therapy services. A determination of medical necessity as to each of the services billed to Medicare turn on the individualized (and not collective) decisions of clinicians. The defendant argued that individualized decision-making cannot be demonstrated accurately through collective proof. Nevertheless, the court in LifeCare concluded that this argument “highlights the very nature of statistical sampling: that a smaller portion of claims will be used to draw an inference about a larger, not entirely identical, population of claims.” Some commentators have reacted to this reasoning by concluding that LifeCare gives the government and relators license to sidestep proof of falsity for each alleged claim for payment.

Another recent decision, United States v. AseraCare, Inc., No. 2:12-CV-245-KOB, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 167970 (N.D. Ala. Dec. 4, 2014), illustrates a similar conclusion. In that case, the court denied the defendant’s motion for summary judgment on the element of falsity where the government solely relied upon a sampling of claims reviewed by an expert. In its decision, the court concluded that statistical evidence was sufficient evidence of falsity to defeat summary judgment.

However, a close reading of both LifeCare and AseraCare demonstrates that these cases contain important limitations. First, the LifeCare court recognized that its decision was the first of its kind. Other courts are not bound to follow its reasoning. Second, both courts noted that plaintiffs seeking to use sampling would still be subject to Daubert challenges. Moreover, LifeCare does not stand for the proposition that a plaintiff can prove FCA elements other than falsity by virtue of presenting a valid sample. In opposing summary judgment, the government represented that it intended to establish scienter by evidence of “corporate practices and pressure, and that LifeCare knew those practices likely caused the submission of false claims given the complaints it received nationwide from its employees and others.” The court approved of the manner in which the government proposed to establish scienter, [...]

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