ATTORNEY NEWSLETTER
When people hear the term “whistleblower,” they might associate it with large financial rewards and exposing companies committing financial fraud. This isn’t wrong. However, there is a side to whistleblowing that is just, if not even more important, than exposing financial fraud. Especially in whistleblower lawsuits against hospitals and pharmaceutical companies.
In recent years, there have been major whistleblower lawsuits against Abbott, GlaxoSmithKline, Amgen, and Pfizer that resulted in billions of dollars being recovered. These companies are all large pharmaceutical companies. Most recently, there has been a $97 million settlement between the US Department of Justice and Community Health Systems regarding Medicare fraud. Community Health Systems boasts owning over 100 hospitals. The payout was huge in all of these lawsuits. What people may not realize, however, is that these whistleblower lawsuits also saved lives.
Community Health Systems was admitting patients for medically unnecessary overnight stays. The above-listed pharmaceutical companies were found guilty of providing patients with medication that were neither medically necessary nor medically rational. It goes without saying that unnecessary medication is harmful to any person. What may come as a surprise is that unnecessary overnight stays in hospitals actually increases the risk of infection. Why? Because people don’t go to hospitals when they are healthy. People go to hospitals when they are sick. As anyone who has caught a cold from someone else should know, the longer one stays around a sick person (or more), the easier it is to fall sick.
The whistleblowers that brought forth evidence of financial fraud, with or without knowing, also brought forth evidence of dangerous medical practices that put many people at risk. As a result, when the hospitals and pharmaceutical manufacturers were stopped in their tracks from further committing misconduct, the patients within their care was also saved from risky practices.
Whistleblowers are thus necessary not only because they expose all sorts of misconduct within companies, but because they may also stop hospitals and pharmaceutical manufacturers from increasing the risk of infection or prescribing unnecessary and harmful drugs.
If you think you have a whistleblower claim, contact The Evans Law Firm, Inc. The Evans Law Firm handles qui tam (whistleblower/false claim) lawsuits, securities fraud whistleblower award lawsuits, employment and retaliation litigation, and IRS tax fraud lawsuits. The Evans Law Firm also handles elder abuse cases, personal injury, consumer fraud class action, and insurance/banking fraud. Contact us at 415-441-8669 or via email at info@evanslaw.com for a free and confidential consultation.
