Oftentimes, when people describe the typical whistleblower, they paint a picture of a dissatisfied employee who stands up to his or her wayward employer. While this is certainly true in a lot of False Claims Act cases, there is no requirement that the whistleblower be an employee or a so-called “insider.” Indeed, some of the most effective whistleblowers are the direct corporate competitors of the fraudulent businesses.

The most recent example involves a case filed under the California False Claims Act, which maintains that seven private medical labs allegedly overbilled the state Medicaid program for diagnostic testing. The whistleblower, the CEO of a competitor lab company, refused to join in the alleged price-gouging.  His courage was recently rewarded, after Quest Diagnostics agreed to pay Medicaid $241 million to settle the lawsuit.

For more information about qui tam law and healthcare fraud, contact Nolan & Auerbach, P.A.