What You Need to Know About the False Claims Act

 The medical field has reported an increasing number of false billing cases, kickbacks, illegal prescriptions, up coding, tampering with documents, etc. The victims have been patients and the loved ones of these patients. Several legislations were enacted to counter the rise in frauds and illegal activities in the medical field, prescribing severe punishments to those found guilty of the charges laid out in the legislation. The rise in fraud reports also led to an increase in the number of false allegations arising against medical practitioners and institutions.  Legislations And Punishments Prescribed The various legislations enacted to combat the rise in Medicare frauds include the False Claims Act, the Anti-kickback Statute, the Criminal Healthcare Fraud law, the Stark law, or more commonly known as the Self-referral law. It prevents practices where doctors refer patients to their family members or close associates with an intent to make a profit from the patient's conditio...