Major Michigan-Based Hospital System Settles Health Care Fraud Case

Contact: J. Marc Vezina (504) 813-6100 - jmv@vezinalaw.com

Date: August 2, 2018

Major Michigan-Based Hospital System Settles Health Care Fraud Case Vezina Law Group announced today that William Beaumont Hospital (“Beaumont”), a major hospital system with facilities in Royal Oak, Troy, and Grosse Pointe, Michigan, among other locations, will pay $84.5 million dollars to settle a False Claims Act lawsuit for health care fraud.

Captioned United States ex rel. Cathryn Pawlusiak. v. Beaumont Health System, et al. No. 2:11-cv-12515 (E.D. Mich.), the lawsuit alleged that Beaumont engaged in health care fraud by providing free or below market-rate office space and staff to physicians and physician groups, as well as by providing them with excessive compensation, in order to induce and pay for referrals of Medicare, Medicaid, and TRICARE patients to Beaumont in violation of anti-kickback and self-referral federal and state laws. The lawsuit was filed in 2011 by a former executive of Beaumont (the “Relator”) and was later joined by the United States of America, acting through the United States Department of Justice, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan, the Office of Inspector General (“HHS-OIG”) of the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”), the Defense Health Agency, and the TRICARE Program (collectively, the “United States”); and the State of Michigan, acting through the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, among other parties. Vezina Law Group The lawsuit was originally filed under seal pursuant to the qui tam provisions of the federal and State False Claims Acts (collectively, the “Act”), which allows private persons with knowledge of fraud against a government program to file lawsuits on the government’s behalf. If the case is successful, the private plaintiffs, known as “relators,” are entitled to a percentage of the government’s recovery between 15% and 25% if the Government intervenes, which occurred in this case. The Act provides for recovery of treble (triple) the single damages incurred by the government as a result of the fraud, as well as civil monetary penalties of between $5,500 and $11,000 or more per false claim submitted, and statutory attorney fees. In this case, the Relator will receive a portion of the recovery by the United States and the State of Michigan, which will respectively receive $82,739,801.10 and $1,760,198.90, plus interest.

Relator was represented by J. Marc Vezina and Monica P. Navarro, partners at Vezina Law, PLC, a member of the Vezina Law Group with offices in Birmingham, Michigan, and New Orleans, Louisiana, as well as by Louis C. Szura and others at the Vezina Law Group. The United States was represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Peter A. Caplan, Carolyn Bell-Harbin, and Leslie Wizner of the Eastern District of Michigan, as well as by Senior Trial Counsel Laurie A. Oberembt of the Commercial Litigation Branch of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Vezina Law Group is a full-service law firm with over a Billion dollars in False Claims Act/Qui Tam recoveries.