On July 2, 2025, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced the creation of the DOJ-HHS False Claims Act Working Group, a high-level interagency initiative aimed at strengthening the government’s civil enforcement of the False Claims Act (FCA) in the healthcare space. While the DOJ and HHS have long worked together to combat fraud, this Working Group marks a formalized, tightly coordinated effort focused on high-impact enforcement areas.
Recently, Attorney General Pam Bondi purportedly issued an internal memorandum in response to Executive Order 14187 (“Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation”) concerning the treatment of transgender minors by medical practitioners, hospitals, clinics, and pharmaceutical companies. The memo set forth guidance for all Department of Justice (DOJ) employees to investigate individuals and entities who provide gender-affirming care to minor patients. To be clear, the memorandum—which has been posted in various locations on the internet and widely reported on by various media outlets but has not been verified as authentic by Husch Blackwell—is an internal policy statement directed to DOJ personnel and is not law. While it purports to issue “guidelines” pursuant to an executive order from the President, that executive order is itself under scrutiny (and has been partially enjoined).
A recent False Claims Act (FCA) litigation—Jensen ex rel. United States of America v. Genesis Laboratory—highlights critical compliance risks for laboratories. This case reinforces the need for laboratories to ensure adherence to federal regulations governing medical necessity, lab requisition practices, and the Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS).
On February 25, 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a False Claims Act (FCA) complaint against an Idaho home health agency and its owner, alleging that a series of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan applications were fraudulent because the home health agency did not disclose in the applications that the home health agency was making improper claims to Idaho Medicaid at the time it applied for the loans.
On January 8, 2025, a federal grand jury in Virginia returned an indictment against a hospital. This rare criminal event in healthcare alleges that Chesapeake Regional Medical Center conspired to defraud the United States and committed healthcare fraud. Hospitals are almost never criminally charged, as federal investigations into hospitals are nearly always civil proceedings under the False Claims Act. This post explains how this hospital’s alleged actions rose to the level that merited criminal indictment.
While Monty Hall (or for the current generation, Wayne Brady) was nowhere in sight, it was difficult not to think about the show “Let’s Make a Deal” while sitting in the audience at the American Bar Association’s 39th National Institute on White Collar Crime. During the Institute, one of the featured speakers, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, announced a new DOJ-led whistleblower rewards program.
“Incident to” billing is widely practiced, and its regulations are generally well-known. But one Arizona physician recently found himself pleading guilty in federal court on April 3, 2024, to a criminal healthcare fraud charge over improperly billing Medicare and private payors for healthcare services that failed to abide by the rules over “incident to” billing. This blog post explores how this lack of compliance resulted in such a serious criminal consequence.
We are proud to announce a much-needed addition to Husch Blackwell’s lineup of podcasts. Last week, we launched False Claims Act Insights, a new podcast devoted to exploring issues relating to False Claims Act (FCA) investigations and litigation. The show is hosted by Jonathan Porter—a partner in our firm’s White Collar, Internal
So, you’ve received a third-party subpoena. Now what? A third-party subpoena is the procedural mechanism that allows parties in litigation to obtain evidence from non-party individuals and/or entities. For federal cases, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 45 governs this process. Rule 45 outlines specific procedures that litigants must follow to serve a subpoena seeking documents and/or testimony properly. The Rule also provides protections non-parties can use to alleviate their burden in producing responsive documents. Most states have their own rules that govern non-party discovery that often, but not always, mirror Rule 45.
On October 8, 2023, Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 1286 (AB 1286), a sweeping pharmacy measure with several components aimed at promoting patient safety. Chief among AB 1286’s mandates is a new law requiring that community pharmacies report outpatient medication errors to the California Board of Pharmacy. But beyond the mandatory reporting requirement, AB 1286 contains various other important provisions governing the practice of pharmacy in California.