Our Health Care and Health Care Litigation Groups analyze how the Department of Justice used the False Claims Act and Stark Law to require a health care provider to repay federal COVID-19 funding.
On April 12, 2022, Physician Partners of America (PPOA) agreed to pay $24.5 million to settle False Claims Act (FCA) allegations that it billed federal health care programs for unnecessary medical testing and that it violated the Physician Self-Referral Law, known as the Stark Law.
In an interesting development in COVID-19 funding enforcement under the FCA, the Department of Justice (DOJ) also alleged that PPOA falsely represented to the Small Business Administration (SBA) that it was not engaged in unlawful activity when it applied for a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan, citing, in part, PPOA’s violations of the Stark Law and other health care regulations as evidence of PPOA’s false certification.
The settlement marks the first documented instance the DOJ has utilized violations of health care laws as the basis to claw back PPP funds.
Summary of Allegations
The DOJ alleged that PPOA submitted claims for medically unnecessary urine drug testing to federal health care programs because PPOA required its employees...
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