Legal & Regulatory Issues

Here are 10 healthcare billing fraud cases that Becker's has reported since Dec. 27: 

Charles Hatfield, former CEO of Williamson (W.Va.) Memorial Hospital, on Jan. 17 was sentenced to five years of probation and ordered to pay more than $34,000 in restitution and a $20,000 fine for stealing hospital funds for personal use.

Los Angeles-based Cedars-Sinai Medical Center entered a voluntary resolution agreement with HHS and the Office of Civil Rights to resolve allegations of civil rights violations over the treatment of Black women who gave birth at the facility.

Los Angeles-based Cedars-Sinai is facing allegations of appropriating the Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic's reputation and assets without compensation in a $150 million lawsuit.

Lebanon, N.H.-based Dartmouth Health has revised its policy requiring kidney transplant candidates to receive COVID-19 vaccinations, according to New Hampshire's attorney general. 

Gilead Sciences reached a settlement with the Justice Department and HHS that resolves a five-year legal dispute regarding patents for its HIV prevention drugs, Truvada and Descovy. 

A Texas physician was sentenced to 10 years in prison for causing the submission of more than $70 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare for medically unnecessary orthotic braces and genetic tests ordered through a telemarketing scheme.

The former CEO of a Texas hospital has been sentenced to 36 months in federal prison for his role in conspiring to violate the Anti-Kickback Statute.

Whisteblowers filed a record 979 qui tam lawsuits in 2024, according to a Jan. 15 Justice Department report. 

A bill introduced in the Indiana Senate aims to further restrict abortion access by banning abortion-inducing drugs and requiring women seeking abortion due to rape or incest to file an affidavit, The Indiana Capital Chronicle reported Jan. 8.