Health care providers may want to offer free or discounted services to help patients, and that instinct may be good. Most providers, however, don’t think of “free care” as a kickback issue in the same way they might think about gifts or rewards as a kickback issue. They should, because the Office of Inspector General

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) recently announced a new initiative to enhance its working relationship with data miners who bring cases as whistleblowers under the False Claims Act (FCA).[1] The initiative is dubbed “FOCUS,” an acronym for Fraud Oversight through Careful Use of Statistics.

There has been a sharp increase in qui tam complaints

On April 21, 2026, in a “Hearing on Protecting Patients and Taxpayers: Cracking down on Medicare Fraud,” the House Ways & Means Committee received testimony on hospice and home health fraud from Sheila Clark, President and Chief Executive Officer of the California Hospice and Palliative Care Association,[1] and Chris Deery, the Director of Corporate Fraud

On February 6, 2026, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed the Medical Aid in Dying Act (MAID), making New York the 13th state to adopt similar legislation along with the District of Columbia. MAID has created a new Article 28-F to the New York Public Health Law, which will be effective August 5, 2026.

What

Noncompete agreements remain in the Federal Trade Commission’s crosshairs. Although the FTC abandoned its pursuit of a nationwide ban, targeted enforcement is here, and the healthcare industry specifically has been placed on notice.

The Background

On September 5, 2025, the FTC announced it was walking away from its proposed national ban on noncompetes. However, in

Last month, Dr. Mehmet Oz, Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”), accompanied by other CMS officials, visited with home health and hospice providers and related industry associations to discuss ways to strengthen program integrity enforcement. CMS was reacting to calls from industry stakeholders and members of Congress to get a handle

This week, Governor Hochul announced a proposal significantly expanding state scrutiny over corporate health care transactions. This proposal reiterates previously expressed concerns that both private equity and health system acquisitions of medical and dental practices lead to reduced access to care, declining quality and higher prices.

While stopping short of requiring actual Health Department approval

In an unfavorable Advisory Opinion issued last week[1], the Office of Inspector General, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“OIG”) found that a home care agency’s plan to market sign-on bonuses to prospective employees with the intention of employing those individuals to provide services to family members could result in sanctions for violating the

The 21st Century Cures Act (“Cures Act”) required states to adopt electronic visit verification (EVV) systems for Medicaid-covered personal care services (“PCS”) by January 1, 2020 and for home health care services (“HHCS”) by January 1, 2023. According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”), the EVV requirement was imposed “in response to

The 2025 National Health Care Fraud Takedown, announced in June, was the largest in history, with 325 defendants charged (including 96 providers) in 50 federal districts. In all, the charged schemes involved more than $14 billion in intended loss, and more than $245 million in cash, luxury vehicles, cryptocurrency and other assets were seized. These