Hope Cancer Institute, Healthcare Fraud, Kansas 2014

KANSAS CITY, KAN. - A Kansas cancer clinic's greed has cost them dearly. In a move to recoup losses for taxpayers, the Hope Cancer Institute, and Dr. Raj Sadasivan, agreed to pay $2.9 million to resolve allegations that they violated the False Claims Act by submitting claims to Medicare, Medicaid, and the Federal Health Benefits Program for drugs and services that were not provided to the beneficiaries.

U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom announced that the District of Kansas collected more than $11.4 million in criminal and civil actions in Fiscal Year 2014. Of this amount, $5 million was collected in criminal actions and $6.4 million was collected in civil actions.

“We work very hard to be good stewards of the taxpayers’ money,” said U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom. “Our collections in Fiscal Year 2014 almost equaled our office’s total direct budget of $11.9 million.”

The case against the Hope Cancer Institute serves as an example of how the U.S. Attorney's Office recovers money for taxpayers. In April 2014, the clinic and Dr. Sadasivan agreed to pay $2.9 million to resolve allegations that they violated the False Claims Act.

The largest civil collections were from affirmative civil enforcement cases, in which the United States recovered government money lost to fraud or other misconduct or collected fines imposed on individuals and/or corporations for violations of federal health, safety, civil rights or environmental laws.

The U.S. Attorney's Offices, along with the department's litigating divisions, are responsible for enforcing and collecting civil and criminal debts owed to the U.S. and criminal debts owed to federal crime victims. The law requires defendants to pay restitution to victims of certain federal crimes who have suffered a physical injury or financial loss.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Justice Department collected $24.7 billion in civil and criminal actions in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2014, nearly eight and a half times the appropriated $2.91 billion budget for the 94 U.S. Attorney's offices and the main litigating divisions in that same period.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ks/pr/us-attorneys-office-kansas-collects114-million-civil-and-criminal-actionsfor-us-taxpayers