U.S. Department of Justice
Last fall the U.S. Department of Justice proudly claimed a major victory for its Health Care Corporate Fraud Strike Force when it nailed Tenet Healthcare Corp. for a multimillion-dollar kickback and bribery scheme. It was the strike force's first major victory it also may have been its last.
That's at least in part because the DOJ, under the Trump administration and new U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, has announced new priorities: violent crime, drugs and illegal immigration.
In restructuring to focus on those priorities, the DOJ has gutted the Health Care Corporate Fraud Strike Force, according to at least two high-level sources who worked at the Justice Department until recently. The sources declined to be named, as being identified could affect their current jobs and clients.
The sources said the strike force has been cut from five full-time lawyers to only two assistant chief Sally Molloy and trial attorney William Chang. And both are splitting their time in the strike force with other duties.
The DOJ declined an interview request for this story. But DOJ spokesperson Wyn Hornbuckle issued this statement: The Health Care Corporate Strike Force, as with the entire health care fraud unit, is going strong under steady leadership continuing to vigorously investigate and hold accountable individuals and companies that engage in fraud, including tackling an opioid epidemic that claimed 60,000 American lives last year.
What is known is that the strike force was created in the fall of 2015, with five dedicated lawyers working on about a dozen of the most complex corporate fraud cases in the health care space.
Andrew Weissmann, the then-chief of the DOJ's fraud section, told a health care conference in April 2016 that the section was placing a heightened emphasis on corporate health care fraud investigations. He pointed to the recently established Corporate Fraud Strike Force that he said would focus resources in investigation and prosecution of larger corporate health care law violations, as opposed to smaller groups or individuals.
That's exactly what happened with Tenet Healthcare, a whistleblower case involving Medicaid fraud that had been languishing in court since 2009, until the strike force stepped in and threw multiple resources at it.
The resolution came in October 2016. Tenet agreed to a massive $516 million settlement and a non-prosecution agreement that imposed compliance reforms and an independent monitor for three years. Two subsidiaries in Georgia pleaded guilty, two individuals have been convicted and a third has been charged.