Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

While whistleblowing may seem risky, the law is on the whistleblower's side to protect him/her from any punishment as a result of reporting misdeeds to the government. Under the False Claims Act (FCA), the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act), and other laws that protect whistleblowers, whistleblowers cannot be fired for whistleblowing. According to the Department of Labor website, "Whistleblowers may not be transferred, denied a raise, have their hours reduced, or be fired or punished in any other way because they have exercised any right afforded to them under one of the laws that protect whistleblowers." And the returns? Apart from that feeling of "doing the right thing," there's the money. Lots of it at times. In order to take home your part of the money recovered, the government must recover at least $1 million; that's the only condition. In cases recovering $1 million or more, a whistleblower will make between $100,000 and $300,000 at least, and in larger cases, he gets at least 10 percent of the money recovered. The largest healthcare fraud settlement in U.S. history against Pfizer Inc., paid six whistleblowers more than $102 million.

(Editor's note: For more on whistleblowing, see "Why Pharma Whistleblowers Are A Harried Lot" in Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement, v36n16. To read details of the Pfifer's whistleblowers' experiences, visit: www.reuters.com/article/idUSN021592920090902. More links to the Pfizer case is posted on the page:

www.phillipsandcohen.com/CM/NewsSettlements/NewsSettlements536.asp.).