Georgia whistleblower awarded $1.3 million for revealing alleged kickback scheme
A Georgia whistleblower has received more than $1.3 million for revealing an alleged kickback scheme.
The Justice Department said April 13, 2022, that Paul D. Weir, John R. Morgan, M.D., and the company they created, Care Plus Management LLC, along with 18 anesthesia entities that Care Plus owned and operated, agreed to pay $7.2 million to resolve allegations that they entered into kickback arrangements with referring physicians in exchange for the referral of the physicians’ patients for anesthesia services.
The case’s allegations show that kickbacks are threatening the financial integrity of federal healthcare programs, said Scott Williams, CEO of Ethic Alliance.
“Patients need to be able to trust that their doctors are making the best decisions for their health, not the doctor’s wallet,” said Williams.
Ethic Alliance is a for-profit corporation and law firm whose purpose is to empower, educate and protect whistleblowers, ensuring they receive the protection they need and the rewards they are entitled to under US law (the US government will typically reward whistleblowers 10%-30% of the amount recovered or sanctioned under various whistleblower laws), generating profits for investors while reducing corruption, fraud, theft, lying and cheating in our society.
Ethic Alliance protects whistleblowers through a secure, encrypted reporting and messaging platform, attaching the strong legal protection of attorney-client privilege from the moment a report is filed with us, and access to a network of specialty attorneys that have made careers protecting and supporting whistleblowers, and working with the US government to win whistleblower lawsuits.
In the Care Plus case, whistleblower Robert Douglas filed a lawsuit against Care Plus under the “qui tam” or whistleblower provisions of the False Claims Act. Under the False Claims Act, private citizens may bring suit for false claims on behalf of the United States and share in any recovery obtained by the government.
The allegations were then investigated by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General and the Georgia Attorney General's Office Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, resulting in the settlement announced April 13.
The federal government alleges that between 2012 and 2016, Weir and Morgan, through Care Plus, induced the physician owners of outpatient surgery centers to award these exclusive services agreements to them by offering them a partial ownership in the anesthesia entities that Care Plus had created to service their surgery centers. Under this arrangement, the physician owners received compensation in the form of a portion of the revenue from the anesthesia services.
The government further alleges that during this same period, Weir, Morgan, Care Plus and its anesthesia companies subsidized the cost incurred by surgery centers for drugs, supplies and equipment in order to induce the physician owners of those centers to grant exclusive anesthesia services agreements to Care Plus’s anesthesia companies.
The government alleged that these arrangements violated the Anti-Kickback Statute of the False Claims Act.
The claims resolved by the settlement are allegations only, and there has been no determination of liability.
“Kickback schemes can undermine our healthcare system, compromise medical decisions, and waste taxpayer dollars,” said Phil Wislar, Acting Special Agent in Charge of FBI Atlanta, in a statement. “The FBI will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to ensure that all medical providers properly follow health care rules and regulations.”
Contact Ethic Alliance at info@ethicalliance.com
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