This week, the Office of the Inspector General issued 10 new state false claims act review letters.  Of the 10 reviews, four new states joined the DRA club—California, Indiana, Rhode Island, and Georgia—and the remaining six were denied entry. 

There are now twelve states with qualifying state qui tam/ state false claims statutes:  Virginia, Texas, Tennessee, New York, Nevada, Massachusetts, Illinois, Hawaii, California, Indiana, Rhode Island, and Georgia.   

According to the OIG's summary:  "As enacted by section 6031 of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (DRA), section 1909 of the Social Security Act (Act) provides a financial incentive for States to enact false claims acts that establish liability to the State for the submission of false or fraudulent claims to the State's Medicaid program. If a State false claims act is determined to meet certain enumerated requirements, the State is entitled to an increase of 10 percentage points in its share of any amounts recovered under a State action brought under such a law."

The requirements were published in the federal register as federal register as Vol. 71, No. 161 in 2006.  

In general, the requirements are that the state false claims act conform to the standards of the Federal False Claims Act—in other words, the state act must create liability for false claims, and not for fraud.  The state statute must also provide for a qui tam mechanism at least equivalent to the federal mechanism, and so forth.

Of course, while OIG is interested solely in the Medicaid angle, most states who pass qui tam statutes take full advantage of the opportunity to recover money for any false claim made on the state's coffers.  Several such hypothetical recoveries have been covered in this blog. 

I find it interesting that Florida—a state with a big, established government structure—would both fail to qualify yet again. 

Zachary A. Kitts
Cook & Kitts, PLLC