Author Archives: Staff

Former chief executive of Japan’s Olympus Corp. has resigned from the board in light of several allegations of a whistleblower. Michael Woodford, who worked at Olympus for three decades, was fired in October after questioning the company’s accounting practices. Upon his departure, Woodford vowed to work with shareholders to replace the company’s board and hopes that the company will come clean about its accounting cover up. Speculation still remains as to the amount that Olympus falsified. The company must submit a proper financial report by December 14, or it could be delisted by the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

Read more at: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10770490

Diakon Hospice Saint John, which operates hospice care facilities in Pennsylvania, has agreed to pay $10.56 million in a false claims settlement. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania and the HHS’ Office of the Inspector General, Diakon erroneously submitted claims to Medicare for hospice care provided to individuals who were not eligible to be beneficiaries at that time. These errors went on from 2004 to 2010. The President of Kiakon, Mark T. Pile, apologized for the “mistakes,” which he claims were “unintentional.”

Read more at: http://www.timesleader.com/news/Claims_in_error_cost_hospice__10_56M_12-02-2011.html

Matthew Paul Brown, who posed as a fake doctor for two years in Atlanta, Georgia, was sentenced to five years and ten months in prison. He was charged for health care fraud and wrongful disclosure of patients’ health information. United States Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said, “[u]nlike most fraud cases, which endanger the bank accounts and financial soundness of victims, this defendant’s fraud scheme also placed his victims’ health at risk. While posing as a doctor, he treated over 1,100 patients. His crime defrauded those individual victims of the care they deserved, and defrauded Medicare, Medicaid and private health insurance companies of funds intended and needed for legitimate health care.”

Read more at: http://news.gnom.es/news/fake-doctor-sentenced-for-health-care-fraud-and-criminal-hipaa-violations

Dorchester pharmacist Ernest M. McGee was sentenced to 12 months in prison by U.S. District Judge Nathaniel M Gorton, the DOJ reports. The judge also ordered McGee to pay restitution to Medicaid and to Medicare, in the amounts of $292,635 and $60,037 respectively. McGee worked at Codman Square Pharmacy in Dorchester, which was owned by Amadiegwu Onujiogu, who was also convicted separately of the same crime. According to the claims, McGee paid customers to bring prescriptions to the pharmacy, but would not then dispense medications to them. McGee would then submit claims to Medicaid and Medicare for the prescriptions and their refills.

Read more at: http://www.justice.gov/usao/ma/news/2011/December/McGeeErnestSentencingPR.html

Genentech, the San Francisco-based U.S. subsidiary of Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche, will pay $20 million to settle a whistleblower lawsuit brought in 2003. The suit claims that from 2000 to at least 2002, Genentech “encouraged oncologists and other physicians and medical providers to bill Medicare and other government reimbursement programs for Rituxan for off-label uses.” The suit also states that the company paid kickbacks to doctors and put pressure on sales reps to increase off-label uses.

Read more at: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/biotech/2011/12/genentech-roche-rituxan-whistleblower.html