The U.S. Supreme Court may take up a False Claims Act (FCA) case involving Georgia-Based Bethany Hospice & Palliative Care LLC, despite indications from the U.S. Justice Department that such a review would be unnecessary.
The case comes at a time when regulators are intensifying scrutiny on hospice providers, seeking to root out those who admit patients that may not truly be eligible for the benefit.
In the Bethany case, two former employees allege that the company violated the FCA and the closely aligned anti-kickback statute. Attorneys for the whistleblowers filed a petition in October 2021 to the nation’s highest court after the Eleventh Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals dismissed the case in May due to a lack of detail in the complaint.
At the Supreme Court’s request, U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Barchas Prelogar filed a brief detailing the government’s position, which in a nutshell said the court should not review the case. The Solicitor General is among the top legal officials within the Justice Department, charged with overseeing litigation involving the federal government.
“As petitioners emphasize, their FCA action turns not on the details of the claims for payment that respondent submitted, but on their allegations that those claims were tainted by kickbacks,” Prelogar wrote in the brief. “It therefore would be difficult for this Court to determine whether petitioners pleaded the submission of false claims with sufficient particularity without also...
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