Robert Salcido Quoted in Modern Healthcare on Growth of Health Care Fraud Investigations

Akin Gump health partner Robert Salcido has been quoted in the Modern Healthcare article “Healthcare fraud probes grow in number, intensity.” The article reports on the aggressive nature of healthcare fraud investigations being conducted by the Justice Department.

According to Modern Healthcare, the number of cases brought by a whistleblower jumped from around 200 per year in the early 2000s to more than 400 annually since 2011. In addition, the article says those probes have consistently generated more than $2 billion in settlements a year since 2010.

While the strategy of each investigation can vary by jurisdiction, Salcido said some investigators “have a scorched-earth approach where they request everything related to a matter.” Since the onset of the pandemic, he has seen one such case placing onerous demands on prosecutors, who had to deal with a large quantity of documents and an expedited time period. In another, though, a provider was only asked for a subset of data as soon as realistically possible.

“There’s a perception that at times the political appointees feel a great deal of pressure to say they held the industry accountable, particularly during these tough times when a lot of people have had adverse health impacts,” Salcido noted.

While there are no specific guidelines about how much documentation investigators can ask for, Salcido pointed out that there is an implicit limitation. If subpoenas or civil investigative demands are overly burdensome and defendants successfully push back, it could build a negative body of case law, which could give other providers incentives to follow suit, he said.