Information on Pharmaceutical Fraud under the False Claims Act

Information provided by a Medical Whistleblower Attorney

The False Claims Act is an important tool in the fight against pharmaceutical fraud. Medical whistleblowers that work across the healthcare industry use qui tam suits to expose a variety of fraudulent schemes used in connection with prescription drugs.

Even though the government recovers billions of dollars through the False Claims Act, estimations show that billions of dollars more in fraudulent costs go unreported.  If you have information on pharmaceutical fraud, contact a whistleblower lawyer at Mike Love & Associates LLC to help recover funds pharmaceutical companies owe American taxpayers.

Types of Pharmaceutical Fraud

Schemes that pharmaceutical companies use to commit fraud include:

• Illegal Kickbacks:  This is where a pharmaceutical company provides incentives to doctors or hospitals to get them to prescribe certain drugs. Kickbacks include providing inappropriate gifts, offering research or educational grants, and giving samples of free drugs doctors can sell to patients.
• Off-Label Marketing: All prescription drugs are approved by the FDA to treat a particular medical condition. This specified use is the drug “label”. However, doctors can prescribe drugs for other medical conditions not approved by the FDA, which a practice known as “off-label” prescription. Pharmaceutical companies cannot legally market their drugs for “off-label” indications.
• Price Inflation:  Price manipulation with pharmaceuticals usually involves a complex scheme with Medicare and Medicaid. Pharmaceutical companies manipulate the prices of their drugs so there is a greater variation between the cost of the drug and the amount the government reimburses.
• Best Price Fraud:  This is another price manipulation tactic aimed at Medicaid. This scheme involves offering prescription drugs to private medical organizations at costs lower than Medicaid. They conceal these price discounts from the government in order to avoid having to provide rebates to Medicaid. This is illegal because the law requires pharmaceutical manufacturers to provide Medicaid the lowest drug prices.

Contact a Whistleblower Attorney

Because of the complex regulations and requirements that surround pharmaceutical distribution, instances of fraud remain very high.  Medical whistleblowers save U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars–and receive compensation for their help.  However, billions more are lost because of unreported fraud.

Medical whistleblowers are commonly sales representatives, pharmaceutical company employees, doctors, nurses, and hospitals.  If you have the evidence of pharmaceutical fraud, contact a whistleblower lawyer at Mike Love & Associates LLC.  Your consultation is completely confidential, with no risk to your job security.