False Claims Act Whistleblowers Who Participated in the Conduct: Your Part Is Where the Conversation Starts

A False Claims Act whistleblower involved in fraud needs an individual review of their role alongside the evidence against the company. If your work included the billing entry, the inspection signoff or the financial aid form now troubling you, start that conversation with our whistleblower experts. We want to understand the work as you experienced it, including the instructions you received and the part you played.

What If I Participated?

Bring that concern to us along with what you know about the conduct. We work through your account with you and bring in False Claims Act whistleblower lawyers who can address your particular circumstances. Your own involvement belongs in that conversation from the beginning.

The useful account is specific. A therapist may know how planned treatment minutes became recorded minutes. An aircraft inspector may know which work was actually completed before someone signed it off. A recruiter may know what an applicant said before the financial aid form changed. The cases below put those workplace decisions in view.

We want to hear the instruction, the work and the record together. You can describe those events in the language of your job. We address the legal assessment with the qui tam whistleblower lawyers we bring into your case.

What Share Is Possible?

A whistleblower case under the False Claims Act can pay 15% to 30% of what the government recovers. The law’s reward provisions tie that share to the proceeds of the case or settlement. A qui tam case is a case a private whistleblower brings on the government’s behalf.

For a reader concerned about their participation, the personal reward question belongs in the same individual review as their role. We bring in False Claims Act whistleblower lawyers to address that question with you.

Who Set the Instructions?

We examine who directed the work, who carried it out and how it reached a request for government money. The False Claims Act reaches knowingly submitted false claims and false records that matter to those claims.

Questions about who planned and initiated the conduct belong in your discussion with us and the False Claims Act whistleblower lawyers assessing your case.

Life Care’s Alleged Pressure to Add Therapy Minutes

Former Life Care Centers of America employees brought whistleblower cases, which the government joined. The government alleged that corporate policies pushed rehabilitation therapy toward high Medicare reimbursement levels without clinical need. The government also alleged that stays continued despite therapists’ recommendations to discharge patients. The company agreed to a $145 million civil settlement in October 2016, with a $29 million whistleblower reward.

A company hotline summary reproduced in a Life Care court filing described how pressure to reach a target allegedly reached the person recording the treatment:

The allegation describes a billing target looking for minutes to fill it. We see the priorities plainly: the payment first, the patient second. A therapist’s knowledge of the treatment and of the request to change the entry could explain both sides of that discrepancy.

The government’s other Life Care filing alleged that a rehabilitation manager could overrule the assessment coordinator and select the assessment days producing the highest payment. It also reproduced an employee complaint that reimbursement had displaced clinically appropriate care. That is the workplace detail we want to understand with you: how the target reached the treatment schedule and then the record of care.

An Aircraft Repair Could Be Signed Off Without the Work

A lead aviation maintenance technician at United Airlines alleged that the company certified repairs as completed when the work had not been done. The Fourth Circuit’s 2018 opinion recounts his allegations that an inspector was pressed to omit reports of engine problems and find someone else to sign off the item.

In the technician’s account, United repaired Air Force engines through a chain of subcontracts. He alleged that United returned improperly repaired engines to the Air Force for payment. A worker at the repair facility could see the inspection and certification work behind that government expense.

The technician also alleged that United certified inspections for cracks in engine parts using an uncalibrated radiometer or without a radiometer at all. For an insider doing that work, the useful detail is what happened at the inspection station before the paperwork declared the job complete.

A Recruiter Could See the Applicant and the Altered Form

A whistleblower’s complaint concerning the Art Institute Online alleged that admissions and financial aid representatives instructed applicants to omit bank account information or a spouse’s salary from financial aid applications. It also alleged that admissions representatives forged aid documentation and signatures under senior management’s direction.

The alleged omissions concerned applications for taxpayer-funded student aid. The account describes what applicants were told, what employees entered and where the instructions came from. Someone who handled the application may be able to explain how information changed between the conversation with the applicant and the completed document. That is the detail we would want to examine with a recruiter who recognizes the practice.

Why the Insider’s Account Matters

An insider can explain the instruction behind a record. In its 2009 report on qui tam and the False Claims Act, the Congressional Research Service traced Congress’s concern that an employee inside a company may be the only person able to bring the information forward.

The therapy record shows minutes. The hotline account describes pressure to add them. The aircraft paperwork certifies a repair. The technician’s allegations describe the missing work and equipment behind that certification. The aid application reports financial information. The recruiter allegations describe instructions to leave some of it out.

We look for those connections with you. The person who knows the work can explain why an entry matters, who asked for it and how the business used it. Those details give us something concrete to assess alongside your concerns about participating.

When You Tried to Change What Was Happening

If you questioned an instruction or tried to change the practice, that experience belongs in our conversation too. The Life Care employee complaint about clinically inappropriate reimbursement targets shows the sort of concern a worker can recognize from inside the operation. We want to understand what you raised and what the company did with it.

Concerns about retaliation or anonymity are also matters to discuss with our whistleblower experts and the False Claims Act whistleblower lawyers we bring in. We stay involved as your partners while the team addresses your circumstances and builds the case around the conduct, the records and the government’s money.

Start With the Part You Know Best

If your own work is part of the conduct you want to report, speak with our whistleblower experts about what happened. We work beside you to develop your strongest case and bring in False Claims Act whistleblower lawyers with experience in the billing, contracting or grant practices involved.