Category: Legal & Regulatory Issues

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed a package of healthcare bills designed to grow the state’s healthcare workforce, expand healthcare access and promote innovation in the industry.

The Senate Finance Committee is working to secure a hearing with UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty this spring, The Washington Post reported March 22. 

The emergency department at Saratoga Hospital in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., was evacuated on March 21 after Jonathan Gardner, 31, who was treated and released, made claims of possessing a bomb while in the ED.

A South Carolina man who owned at least 10 durable medical equipment companies was sentenced to nine years in prison for what the Justice Department called “one of the largest Medicare fraud schemes in history.”

Providers are beginning to file lawsuits against UnitedHealth Group’s Change Healthcare over the Feb. 21 cyberattack that has crippled hospitals, physician practices and pharmacies across the country.

A Washington judge ordered a debt collection agency hired by Renton, Wash.-based Providence to pay $827,000 for violating patients’ medical debt collection rights more than 82,000 times. 

Police in Boise, Idaho, are searching for two suspects after a coordinated attack to facilitate the escape of a prison inmate at Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center left three correctional officers shot.

Former NBA shooting guard Antoine Wright was sentenced to time served for his role in a scheme to defraud the league’s healthcare plan out of $5 million, Law360 reported March 19. 

An Iowa hospital nurse is charged with allegedly overdosing patients with medications, the Iowa Capitol Dispatch reported March 18.

1. Increased government interest in False Claims Act, Stark Act and related issues. In 2023, the U.S. government and whistleblowers were involved in 543 False Claims Act settlements and judgments. This is the highest number recorded in a single year, w…