As previously reported in this post, criminal trials premised on upcoding evaluation and management (E/M) service codes are extremely rare. The Justice Department took that rare step in Maryland in connection with a practice in which Dr. Ron Elfenbein, a physician, billed Medicare and private payors a Level 4 E/M for patients receiving COVID-19 tests. That billing practice, which at times took place at drive-through COVID testing centers, resulted in Dr. Elfenbein’s indictment and conviction by a jury in Maryland federal court.

But on December 21, 2023, the federal judge who presided over that trial granted Dr. Elfenbein’s motion for judgment of acquittal, vacating the conviction. These motions are commonly made but seldom granted. Why was this particular motion for acquittal granted? And what can the healthcare community learn from this case? Read on for details.

Evaluation and management (E/M) services have been called “the core” of healthcare billing.[1] E/M is a catch-all claim, allowing medical professionals to bill for diagnosing or treating nearly any illness or injury. E/M is also divided into fairly subjective levels depending on complexity, and the differences between levels is often merely a difference of opinion. While the DOJ has brought cases based on disputes over E/M services before, those cases are typically civil and part of a more complex upcoding or unbundling scheme.[2] This is because nearly everything involving some effort expended by a physician could arguably justify that physician believing the E/M service was proper, and therefore criminal cases requiring scienter evidence that proves the case beyond a reasonable doubt are incredibly rare.

Yet one of those rare cases went to trial this month.

On June 14, 2023, a federal jury found that a Georgia physician knowingly violated the False Claims Act following a two-week trial on allegations that he made false claims to the Medicare Program. Now, despite just $1.1 million in improper payments stemming from false claims, a federal court is likely to impose a judgment that exceeds $27 million after adding statutory per-claim penalties and trebling the amount determined by the jury to be false.

Following two weeks of trial testimony, a Travis County jury recently rendered a $10 million verdict in a novel corporate practice of medicine (CPOM) case. The jury found in favor of a physician hospitalist group that claimed a management company repeatedly broke its promise to comply with the state’s CPOM prohibition, putting profits over patients, among other wrongdoings.