Maximus, Inc., a company based in Virginia that worked as a government contractor, has agreed to pay $8 million to the United States. This payment is to resolve serious allegations that it misled the United States Census Bureau about the quality of the work done during the 2020 Census. The settlement comes after an investigation into Maximus’s actions, which were brought to light by whistleblowers under the False Claims Act.
Maximus was responsible for running call centers during the 2020 Census. These call centers received calls from people with questions about the Census and also made outgoing calls to help others complete their Census forms. The company was required to evaluate the quality of its services and report this information to the Census Bureau.
Maximus’s contract with the Census Bureau required the company to assess the quality of its call center operations. The company employed quality monitors who scored the calls based on how well the call-takers followed the rules. These rules were set up to measure how accurate the data input was and how professional and polite the call-takers were.
The government claims that Maximus provided false information about its performance. Instead of scoring calls randomly, which the contract required, Maximus allegedly encouraged its quality monitors to select specific calls that would show better results. By choosing calls that were easier to rate highly, the company was able to report...
On February 26, 2025, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas issued a significant False Claims Act (FCA) ruling in United States of America ex rel. Cheryl Taylor v. Healthcare ...