AHA, others urge Supreme Court to review 3rd Circuit FCA decision
The AHA, joined by the Association of American Medical Colleges, Federation of American Hospitals, Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania and New Jersey Hospital Association, today urged the U.S. Supreme Court to review a 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals decision that gives private individuals “broad license” to bring meritless False Claims Act lawsuits against hospitals and other health care providers.
“This case presents a question of tremendous importance: whether a plaintiff can plausibly allege a violation of the False Claims Act by claiming that the defendant knowingly violated an ambiguous regulatory provision that has not been definitively construed prior to that defendant’s case,” in this case the Stark Act, the groups said in a friend-of-the-court brief. “…If all a qui tam relator needs to do to survive a motion to dismiss is allege that a hospital violated an ambiguous statute or regulation, then hospitals will routinely face years of FCA litigation, millions of dollars of costs, and immense pressures to settle.”
In the case, U.S. ex rel. Bookwalter v. UPMC, a 3rd Circuit panel reversed a lower court’s decision dismissing an FCA case against the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center that involved productivity-based physician compensation structures between UPMC’s subsidiary physician practices and neurosurgeons.