Tommy Rea Discusses New DOJ Whistleblower Program

Thompson Coburn partner Tommy Rea was quoted in a recent Healthcare Risk Management article on a new whistleblower program from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) that focuses on the health care industry.

Reducing fraud, waste, and abuse is a worthy endeavor, he noted, but the new whistleblower program may have another effect.

“I fear this program will be viewed as the government attempting to create a new class of paid informants currently employed by private organizations in an area where the clear, traditional federal jurisdictional hook may be lacking,” Tommy said. “Like with any paid informant or situation where you directly incentivize someone, a reasonable expectation is to see an increase in reporting since that is what is being incentivized.”

Tommy, a former federal prosecutor, noted the difficulty for the government is the “garbage in, garbage out” principle, commonly seen in the FCA context. The government must wade through the information it receives to determine whether an allegation is worthy of action, he said.

“At the end of the day, these are going to be time and resources issues for the government. I will be anxious to see what the cost-benefit analysis on this program looks like in one year, let alone five years,” he said. “I hope it is positive.”

Click here to read the full article.