Whistblower Being Wronged For Doing Right!

    
Thomas Drake became a symbol of the dangers whistleblowers

face when they help journalists and Congress investigate

wrongdoing at intelligence agencies. He claims he was subjected to

a decade of retaliation by the National Security Agency that

culminated in his being charged with espionage.

But when the Pentagon Inspector General’s Office opened an

inquiry into the former senior NSA official’s allegations of

retaliation in 2012, it looked at only two of the 10 years detailed in

his account, according to a recently released Pentagon summary of

the probe, before finding no evidence of retaliation. That finding

ended Drake’s four-year effort to return to government service.

Whistleblower advocates say Drake’s experience, spelled out in a

document McClatchy obtained this month through the Freedom of I

information Act, underscores the problem that intelligence and

defense workers face in bringing malfeasance to the surface. The

agencies that are supposed to crack down on retaliation are not up

to the task, especially when the alleged wrongdoing involves

classified information, they charge.

“This report epitomizes the utter lack of protection for national

security whistleblowers,” said Jesselyn Radack, Drake’s attorney.

“This is a pathetic, anemic excuse for an investigation.”

Although investigators appear to have rejected Drake’s claims

almost a year ago, the Pentagon Inspector General’s Office did not

publicly disclose its findings and hadn’t shared them even with

Drake’s attorneys. McClatchy gave the attorneys a copy of the

report.


The news of the rejection comes as McClatchy has learned that the

same officials who are supposed to be helping whistleblowers such

as Drake claim that they themselves have been forced to blow the

whistle on their own office.

Multiple former and current officials from the Pentagon Inspector

General’s Office have alleged to the Office of Special Counsel, the

independent government agency that investigates whistleblower

claims, that they’ve been retaliated against for objecting to how

cases are handled. Drake’s case is one of several singled out for

criticism.
  “It illustrates the bleak landscape faced by whistleblowers and IG  investigators,” said one of the several people who described the  accusations but asked to remain anonymous because of the  sensitivity of the matter. “The numerous allegations of reprisal and  misconduct directed against senior IG officials call into question  the efficacy of the whistleblower mission. If true, one can make the  case that the office of inspector general has failed.”

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2015/02/23/5534356/rejection-of-nsa-whistleblowers.html#storylink=cpy

Whistleblower Special Meeting for Your Rights!

 

BREAKING NEWS

 

Whistleblower Special Meeting

Tomorrow, Tuesday September 9^th at 2:00 pm ET, the House Oversight Government Reform Committee’s Federal Workforce, US Postal Service and Census Subcommittee will  hold the following hearing, “Examining the Administration’s Treatment of Whistleblowers”. It will explore whistleblower retaliation since passage of the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act.

 

 

Witnesses have not yet been publicly announced, but GAP legal director Tom Devine, Federal Air Marshal whistleblower Robert MacLean, and VA whistleblower Dr. Van Boven will be testifying, among others.

 

The hearing is open to the public and will be held at 2154 Rayburn House Office Building.

 



 

Whistleblower Settlements Summary 2014

There were a number of settlements and verdicts around the country in whistleblower cases in August. This is an area of litigation that is expanding rapidly.



COMMUNITY HEALTH SYSTEMS TO PAY $98 MILLION IN SETTLEMENT

The nation’s largest operator of acute care hospitals, Community Health Systems, Inc., has agreed to pay $98 million to settle claims that the company billed government health care programs for inpatient services that should have been billed as significantly less expensive outpatient or observation services. CHS was said to have engaged in a corporate-driven scheme to increase inpatient admissions of Medicare, Medicaid and TRICARE beneficiaries older than 65. The government further claimed that the inpatient admissions were not medically necessary and should have been provided in a less costly outpatient or observation setting.

The settlement resolves lawsuits filed by several whistleblowers under the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act. Since January 2009, the Justice Department has recovered more than $20.2 billion through False Claims Act cases.


MCKESSON TO PAY $18 MILLION TO END CDC DRUG SHIPMENT CLAIMS

Pharmaceutical distributor McKesson Corp. will pay $18 million to settle whistleblower claims that it improperly set temperature monitors outside contractual limits when shipping vaccines for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention . The U.S. Department of Justice announced the settlement on August 8. San Francisco-based McKesson signed a contract with the CDC in 2007 requiring it to set electronic devices in shipping containers to detect whether temperatures strayed outside a slim range just above freezing. The False Claims Act suit, filed by a former financial director, alleged the company instead set the monitors for a much wider range that would have allowed vaccines to freeze or reach room temperature without alerting personnel.

The CDC said the monitors were a backup system and that the vaccines were properly packed in insulated containers and transported at the right temperatures. McKesson maintained that the temperature monitors complied with the contract. The relator in the lawsuit, Terrell Fox, alleged that from April to November, McKesson shipped vaccines from manufacturers to health care providers and set monitors to go off only if the vaccines were colder than -1 degree Celsius and warmer than 25 degrees.
It was alleged that the vaccines were supposed to stay refrigerated and never freeze and that the correct range should have been from 2 to 8 degrees Celsius. Fox said that McKesson violated the contract and knowingly submitted false claims in an attempt to avoid liability for replacing potentially ruined vaccines. The vaccines shipped by McKesson were intended for children. 

VASCULAR SOLUTIONS SETTLES FALSE CLAIMS ACT CASE

Vascular Solutions (VSI) will pay $520,000 to resolve allegations that it caused false claims to be submitted to federal health programs by marketing a medical device for the ablation (or sealing) of perforator veins without U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval and despite the failure of its own clinical trial. VSI, a medical device company based in Minneapolis, Minn., markets and sells medical devices that treat varicose veins by sealing the veins with laser energy – endovenous laser ablation. Their products include consoles, which generate the laser energy, and accessory kits.
In 2010, DeSalle Bui, a former Vascular Solutions salesperson, sued the company. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Texas subsequently intervened in the case. The lawsuit accused VSI of “off-label promotion” of its Vari-Lase products, saying the company marketed the product for the treatment of perforator veins despite the fact that it wasn’t approved for such uses. The lawsuit alleged that the improper promotion of the product, as well as kickbacks that VSI paid to physicians, caused the government to lose roughly $20 million, as health care providers submitted claims to government programs such as Medicare.


JURY AWARDS $730,000 IN WHISTLEBLOWER LAWSUIT

A jury has returned a $730,000 verdict in favor of a whistleblower who reported on an unethical pain management study on prison inmates by researchers at the University of California, Davis. Janet Keyzer, a former UC Davis administrative nurse, claimed in a lawsuit that her career was ruined when she raised questions about whether the research project on physically and mentally disabled inmates at San Quentin Prison had obtained consent from its subjects. The Superior Court jury’s verdict was in favor of the 59-year-old Keyzer. She had worked for the university’s Center for Healthcare Policy and Research for more than nine years at the time of her termination in 2007.

Whistleblower-Rules To Live By

 

WARNING: If you believe your employer or individuals at your work place are committing federal fraud, DO NOT communicate with us from your company e-mail, computers, fax, phone or any communication device.

If you have information about fraud taking place in your workplace, we can help you resolve the problem without risking your job, your health, or your family. There may also be a substantial cash reward for reporting the fraud, sometimes in the millions of dollars. But we can’t help you if you get fired for calling us or emailing us from your workplace.

Because we cannot guarantee that your employer is not monitoring your communications, we recommend contacting us from your home telephone or computer. We can help you if you are worried about what will happen because you did the right thing and reported potential fraud, but there is no need to take unnecessary risks.

So please, be safe and use your home computer or telephone to talk with us. We’re here to help.

Stephani LeFlore Takes On CVS Pharmacy

CVS Pharmacy's Medicaid Fraud

 

 

CVS pays $17.5 Million to settle Medicaid Fraud
CVS, the giant retail pharmacy chain, has agreed to pay $17.5 Million to settle a whistleblower lawsuit accusing it of Medicaid fraud (“welfare fraud”).

THE FRAUD
According to her False Claims Acts lawsuit, CVS pharmacist Stephani LeFlore of Minnesota brought evidence to the government that CVS used a billing system for years that was designed to overbill Medicaid on prescription charges. Ms. LeFlore is represented by Minnesota attorneys Neil Thompson, Brian Wojtalewicz, Robert Christensen, and James VanderLinden, with local counsel Aaron Halstead of Madison, Wisconsin, where the case was filed in federal court.
It was done in relation to dual-eligible customers – those legitimately on Medicaid who also maintained their private health insurance coverage. The insurance coverages required CVS to charge the insurance company a smaller amount for prescriptions, and limited co-pay from the customer. When a person is allowed Medicaid coverage, the government always obtains an assignment of the person’s rights under their private health insurance coverage. The government essentially takes over the citizen’s rights under the coverage. This includes the common right to pay a smaller co-pay amount on prescriptions.
Ms. LeFlore claimed in her federal and state lawsuits that CVS should only have billed the Medicaid program the same limited co-pay on prescriptions that it would have normally billed the customer under the insurance plan. She alleged that CVS designed a billing software program for its pharmacies that consistently overcharged Medicaid on these co-pays. She claimed that these overcharges occurred on hundreds of thousands of prescription sales for well over five years.
The $17.5 Million settlement covers over-billings by CVS in the states of Minnesota, California, Massachusetts, Michigan, Florida, Indiana, Alabama, Nevada, New Hampshire and Rhode Island.
Ms. LeFlore first complained internally, but she was told by a supervisor that “corporate took care of the billing” and that she need not be concerned. She then retained her attorneys and commenced the False Claims Acts (qui tam) lawsuit in September, 2008. The lawsuit stayed under seal (non-public), according to the False Claims Acts and court orders, until the announcement of this settlement.
Ms. LeFlore and her attorneys will receive $2,595,460.00 as the reward under the federal and state False Claims Acts. They are also entitled to receive attorney fees from CVS.