The Federal False Claims Act (FCA) creates civil liability for entities that falsely or fraudulently contract with the government to provide services or goods in exchange for federal funds. FCA cases often arise in healthcare contexts in which the government pays entities for providing products and services to eligible beneficiaries. With the growth of Medicare and Medicaid funding for healthcare services, there has been a corresponding increase of false claims and FCA cases, in the healthcare context. For instance, of the over 30 billion recovered by the government for FCA cases in the last fifteen years, recoveries from Health and Human Services constitutes over 20 billion.
An FCA case may involve a false representation that a service has been provided when in fact it has not. Such a case may also involve a false representation of compliance with underlying governmental requirements for payment. Recently, there has been growing confusion as to how to address cases in which the defendant is not the party actually submitting the allegedly false claim, but the party that caused the false claim to be filed.