The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced this week that it recovered a record $5.69 billion in civil False Claims Act (FCA) settlements during fiscal year 2014.  This recovery included $2.3 billion for FCA cases involving federal health care programs, such as Medicare, Medicaid and TRICARE.  Some of the significant health care fraud recoveries included $1.1 billion for Johnson & Johnson’s civil FCA settlement ($2.2 billion total) in November 2013 and $116 million for Omnicare’s civil FCA settlement ($124 million total) in June 2014, as well as cases involving hospitals, home health service providers, and medical device companies.  This was the 5th consecutive year that the DOJ recovered more than $2 billion in health care fraud cases due, in part, to the HEAT program.

Additionally, the DOJ disclosed that of the $5.69 billion recovered, nearly $3 billion related to lawsuits filed under the FCA’s qui tam whistleblower provisions. Whistleblowers received $435 million in payouts in the last fiscal year.  There also are over 700 qui tam cases pending for the second consecutive year.