A radiation oncologist has lost his long-running legal battle accusing his former employer of violating the False Claims Act.
Robert C. O’Laughlin, MD, and his attorneys first took Radiation Therapy Services and its physicians to court in late 2016, citing quit tam provisions of the FCA. They charged the Kentucky-based provider group—doing business as the Ashland Bellefonte Cancer Center—had submitted fraudulent claims to Medicare and Medicaid for radiation oncology and chemotherapy services that were not properly supervised or performed by specialists.
However, despite multiple amendments to his complaint, O’Laughlin could not provide concrete evidence proving Radiation Therapy Services knowingly submitted false claims to federal authorities. The U.S. Court of Appeals rejected his latest attempt to revive the suit on Aug. 21, citing the lack of sound proof.
“The only evidence that O’Laughlin pleaded in support of his conspiracy claim was that all the defendants committed FCA violations. After all, coordinated false and fraudulent claims by the defendants would be strong evidence of a conspiratorial agreement. And yet O’Laughlin has not provided enough proof of these violations. So, the conspiracy claim fails,” the court opinion states.
O’Laughlin was a radiation oncologist practicing out of three cancer centers in Kentucky from 2012 to 2015. Through his work, he had accused his employers of submitting numerous false claims to Medicare and other federal programs, leading...
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