Why Your Medical Office Needs a Criminal Attorney for FCA Violations

There's no question that healthcare billing to federal health programs is under intense scrutiny. Fraud within programs such as Medicare and Medicaid was the impetus behind the Federal False Claims Act (FCA), which spells out guidelines and penalties for prosecuting fraudulent healthcare practices. The threat of prosecution under the FCA has sent many a healthcare provider in search of a criminal attorney.

In the past, a billing from your office to Medicare, Medicaid or other federal health program that included errors might have been seen as just that, a billing error. It might have been corrected by the payor bringing the error to your billing department's attention, or within your own internal audit system.

Today, however, erroneously billing a federal health program such as Medicare or Medicaid is taken very seriously, and legal action is often initiated against the medical provider. Whether represented by a criminal lawyer from Toledo or a Miami criminal attorney, those providers need adequate legal representation to avoid serious civil and criminal penalties.

If your medical office isn't up to date on what might be pursued as a fraudulent billing violation under the FCA, it could be headed for serious legal trouble. Here are just a few of the reasons the government might pursue prosecution against your practice:

* Deliberate duplicate billings
* Misrepresenting dates, diagnoses or descriptions of services
* Charging separately for services bundled under reimbursement agreements
* Billing for non-covered services
* Billing for services not rendered

In a busy medical practice, even with the best billing practices in place, health care billing errors can occur. When they occur in billings to federal health programs, however, the consequences can be disproportionately painful.

Fort Lauderdale criminal attorney clients, for example, have reported the devastating impact the threat of legal action of this type had on their medical practices before being represented by a criminal lawyer versed in this type of defense.

As a responsible, ethical medical care provider, you do your part to help keep federal health program abuse and fraud under control. You have strong billing practices in place and your staff is well-trained.

Should errors within federal health program billings, however, result in threatened prosecution under the FCA, your first call should be to acriminal lawyer with strong experience in this type of defense. Securing such adequate representation could make all the difference in your medical office's ongoing viability.

In Plain English: Insider Trading

Insider trading is considered a serious white-collar crime by most judges, and also by the general public. Unfortunately, the recognition of one's own actions as insider trading rarely occurs to people. In the case of a stock price that is going to drop, people see it merely as self-preservation; in the case of a stock price that is going up, many people see it as getting in on the ground floor or simple luck. Many of these people end up needing experienced criminal attorneys because they followed their instincts. Here we are reviewing insider trading definitions and laws.

What is insider trading?

Insider trading means that a person is either buying or selling stock options based on information that is not generally known to the public. The law sees that losses and gains in the stock market should be regulated more by good investment practices on the part of the investor than by any inside or privileged knowledge. This is where these cases come in to the hands of criminal lawyers.

Insider trading relates to both buying and selling

Insider trading can be enacted equally innocently (that is, without knowledge of the action's status as a federal crime), from either side of the fence. Whether you buy or sell stock with inside information, though, it is equally illegal. For example, if you work at a company that is about to release a new product with high sales potential (but is still secret), and purchase a large number of shares just prior to the release, it is considered insider trading. If you work at a company that has just sustained a massive loss and sell your shares just before the news becomes public, it is also considered insider trading by criminal attorneys and judges. However, intent can go a long way towards mitigating the crime in the court's eyes.

What law does it come under?

There is no specific law that forbids insider trading, but it is generally recognized as a violation of securities law. The specific phraseology which is often pointed to is that referring to the definition and prohibition of manipulative and deceptive acts, set down in 1961.

The reason that insider trading is considered wrong is that an insider, such as a company employee or someone else with a special relationship (an accountant or other outsourcer, for example), owes a financial duty of care to the company's stockholders not to use their information of personal gain.

However, this duty extends to not telling others about the information to allow them to use it for monetary gain -- so a person who has his wife sell her shares in a company on the basis of insider information may still be convicted of the crime, depending on the individual circumstances and their criminal attorney's competence.

IRS Violations That You Could End up in Criminal Court For

Everybody who has filed a tax return knows what a huge process it is, and how much potential for error there is -- and also how much potential for exploitation. Every year, many Americans end up needing criminal attorneys to represent them in cases where the IRS is looking to prosecute for violations of tax law. Today we are looking at several violations of the tax code that could see you looking up a criminal lawyer.

Legal source tax crimes

This group of crimes is the one that catches most people. Some people believe that the tax laws are wrong, and therefore they do not have to comply with them. If you've found a way to evade tax that you are legally required to pay, you will most likely end up needing a criminal attorney. General violation categories under this umbrella include preparing your return unscrupulously, frivolous filing, not filing a tax return, and Questionable Refund Program cases.

Illegal source tax crimes

If you regularly earn money through illegal businesses -- such as through illegal gambling operations, dealing in weapons, and so on -- the IRS very often has its eye on you. You may end up needing the services of a criminal lawyer expert in IRS violations if you have records of this money.

Narcotics related financial investigations

Anyone who earns money from narcotics can be prosecuted by the IRS for evading taxes - if they fail to pay them on their income. Of course, recording the source of your income will earn you a date in criminal court as well. Narcotics related crimes are separated from other illegal source income by the IRS because of the special problem that law enforcement considers them to pose in society. Without the services of an experienced criminal attorney, you are likely to end up serving harder or longer time than for other illegal source tax crime convictions.

Counter terrorism financing activities

Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, politicians have been putting strategies in place to ensure that terrorism never has the same effect on American society as it did. The truth of terrorism funding laws, though, is that they create a black and white situation out of a grey reality. Your experienced criminal attorney can help you sort these charges out.