The Government Urges Citizens to Report Anticompetitive Health Care Practices Online, but There May Be a Better Way
As part of the current administration’s effort to lower health care costs by promoting competition, three federal agencies recently partnered to announce the launch of an online portal for the public to report unfair and anti-competitive health care practices.
But the online portal is just that: the public is invited to submit information by filling out a form, but the progress of any investigation arising from a report is kept secret and there are no financial rewards – or protections — for providing information.
There may be a better way. Anti-competitive health care practices can result in financial loss to government funded health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid, which cost taxpayers more than $1.5 trillion annually. Rewards for information about fraud on government health care programs, along with whistleblower protections, have long been available under federal and state False Claims Acts. Known as qui tam laws, rewards to whistleblowers in federal health care matters have exceeded $6.8 billion since 1986.
Anti-competitive conduct and fraud on the government often go hand-in-hand. For example, price fixing or bid rigging that results in higher prices paid by the government could be the subject of a qui tam claim, provided the conduct caused financial loss to the government through fraud. In 2020, a whistleblower received a share of more than $200 million recovered from military contractors that engaged in bid rigging, the Department of Justice declaring that the settlement “reflects the important role of both Section 4A of the Clayton [antitrust] Act and the False Claims Act to ensure that the United States is compensated when it is the victim of anticompetitive conduct.”
And in 2019, the DOJ sued a generic pharmaceutical company under the False Claims Act for conspiring with other generic manufacturers to fix prices on a variety of widely-used drugs, including blood pressure and asthma medications. The DOJ stated that it “will use every tool at its disposal to hold generic drug manufacturers accountable for wrongdoing.”
The federal government’s current initiative to contain health care costs for overburdened Americans by targeting anti-competitive practices is necessary and laudable. But rather than filling out a form online and sending it into the ether, concerned citizens should first explore the potential for their reports to be handled under the more structured and accountable False Claims Act process.
Getnick Law has partnered with whistleblowers in health care matters for three decades. Contact us for more information or to discuss a potential case.