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The Privacy Rule of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) established a national standard for the protection of certain health information. Specifically, the HIPAA Privacy Rule protects the privacy of individually identifiable health information, called protected health information (PHI).  Because healthcare fraud constitutes a major component of our practice...

   We have been approached on several occasions by employees of the federal government and asked if they can obtain compensation as whistleblowers under the False Claims Act.  Several courts have ruled that they can, but it can depend upon the underlying circumstances.  The key provision of the False Claims Act addressing this issue states: A person may bring a civil action for a violation...

The short answer is no – a party may not file a Whistleblower (Qui Tam) action without an attorney.  Generally, a person is permitted by right to represent himself or herself in a court proceeding either as a plaintiff or a defendant.  However, this is not the case in the context of a whistleblower suit.  Indeed, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit recently...

Whistleblowers are protected, by federal law, against retaliation. The False Claims Act, which both protects and encourages whistleblowing, contains an anti-retaliation provision that allows whistleblowers to collect double damages and attorney fees for any act of retaliation from an employer. This does not, however, mean that whistleblowers are never harassed, threatened, or fired. That’s...

The Federal Trade Commission’s Consumer Sentinel project reports that the most common type of fraud in 2016 was impostor scams, costing consumers $744.5 million in total – an average of just under $1,125 per victim. And chief among this type of fraud is IRS scams – an issue that increases as more and more Americans prepare their tax returns. Many IRS scams involve fake calls, texts, or emails...

A whistleblower is a person that witnesses activity that defrauds the government and decides to report this fraud. Our attorneys are experienced at helping whistleblower protect themselves at work and at taking their case to court. A whistleblower can be given up to 30% of the settlement or award given in court. Please view this presentation for more information: To schedule a free...