Hospice News October 7, 2024
A federal judge has struck down the whistleblower provisions of the False Claims Act, with broad implications for hospice and other health care enforcement actions.
The ruling centers on the law’s qui tam clauses, which the court found unconstitutional. In a qui tam action, a whistleblower, called a “relator” by the courts, files a False Claims Act suit on behalf of the government and possibly receives a portion of any funds recovered by the government via the lawsuit, typically ranging from 15% to 25%.
The overwhelming majority of False Claims Act cases involve qui tam whistleblowers. In Fiscal Year 2023, for example, these cases recovered $2.3 billion of the total $2.68 billion recouped by the government in FCA settlements and...