On March 1, 2010, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that it had reached an agreement with Christiana Care Health System (“CCHS”), the State of Delaware’s largest health care provider, to settle a qui tam lawsuit. The lawsuit alleged that CCHS violated the False Claims Act by certifying, in claims submitted to Medicare and Medicaid, that the company was in compliance with all laws and regulations, when, in fact, the company allegedly paid kickbacks to physicians in order to induce them to refer patients to CCHS, in violation of the federal Stark Statute and the Delaware Anti-Kickback Statute. CCHS agreed to pay $3.3 million to settle the lawsuit. The qui tam whistleblowers, two Delaware neurologists, will receive approximately $640,000 of the settlement proceeds as a reward for exposing the alleged fraudulent acts to the Government.
