by Ben Vernia | September 9th, 2011
On September 9, the Department of Justice announced that it was partly joining a whistleblower’s suit in Orlando against a hospital alleging Stark Act violations:
The United States has partially intervened in a lawsuit under the False Claims Act against Halifax Hospital Medical Center and Halifax Staffing Inc. in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, the Department of Justice announced today.
The government partially intervened with respect to allegations that Halifax, which is located in Daytona Beach, Fla., violated the Stark law, which prohibits a hospital from billing Medicare for services referred by physicians that have an improper financial relationship with the hospital. The United States alleges that Halifax’s contracts with three neurosurgeons and six medical oncologists were improper, in part, because they either paid physicians more than fair market value, were not commercially reasonable or took into consideration the volume or value of the physicians’ referrals.
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The lawsuit was initially filed in July 2009 by Elin Baklid-Kunz, currently employed at Halifax Staffing as the director of physician services, under the whistleblower provisions of the False Claims Act. Those provisions authorize private parties to sue on behalf of the United States, and permit the United States to intervene and take over the lawsuit. The whistleblower is entitled to receive a portion of any recovery. In this case, the United States elected to intervene in only a portion of the allegations asserted by Ms. Baklid-Kunz.
