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.