This transcript has been auto generated
00;00;00;00 - 00;00;25;01
Meg Pekarske
Hello and welcome to Hospice Insights: The Law and Beyond where we connect you to what matters in the ever-changing world of hospice and palliative care. Still Number One: Healthcare Fraud Remains Central in DOJ's White Collar Enforcement Plan. Jonathan Porter, thank you so much for being here again.
00;00;25;04 - 00;00;26;27
Jonathan Porter
Hey, Meg. Good to be back.
00;00;27;00 - 00;00;51;04
Meg Pekarske
Yeah. So this is sort of, you know, I tried to come up with the fancy title, but it is sort of same old, same old despite, like, I think all of the changes coming out of Washington this, this memo which came out May 12th, we're going to have a link to it in the podcast notes. This memo isn't a real surprise.
00;00;51;04 - 00;00;58;00
Meg Pekarske
I mean, it's just sort of staying the same, same track. Is that what you saw?
00;00;58;02 - 00;01;20;27
Jonathan Porter
Yeah, I think that's. I think that's generally right. I mean, there's some some new things in the memo, some less than new things. But but yeah, I mean, this I don't think anyone was. I don't think anyone in the industry was floored by this memo and didn't see this coming. This was I think a lot of people expected something, some form of this to come, at some point.
00;01;20;29 - 00;01;46;10
Meg Pekarske
So it maybe just to levels that here. Jonathan, because obviously you used to work at the Justice Department do do they come out with these kinds of memos like every year or with the change of administration, or is it is it odd to have a memo at all, like what? Tell me a little bit about the context for for this, because it came from the head of the criminal division.
00;01;46;12 - 00;02;13;00
Jonathan Porter
Yes, yes. So this is it's not unusual to see memos like this there. I would say most frequent you see them at the beginning of a new of a of a new administration. When when a new administration comes in and they're there, DOJ leaders are confirmed. They'll typically look at what was happening in the old administration, and they'll usually have a few bones to pick with how things are being done.
00;02;13;02 - 00;02;47;08
Jonathan Porter
And so it's it's common to see some things, quickly like unwound and some new things installed. And so this is one of the sort of broad, broad policies that I think we, we all saw coming that says, hey, there's a lot of burden that's being placed on companies. And so we're going to rollback some of those, you know, I, we, we saw some of those in, in both some sort of formal channels and informal channels, DOJ saying, look, we think monitor ships in general are pretty burdensome.
00;02;47;09 - 00;03;08;06
Jonathan Porter
We're going to scale those back in some pretty high profile instances. And so something like this was was definitely on its way. But, you know, I think you'll see more of these types of things this year and then you will probably see less of it in the next three years. And then when the new administration in place after that, you'll see, you know, more of these types of memos.
00;03;08;08 - 00;03;41;05
Meg Pekarske
The big tagline is health care still remains an area that the government wants to be very, very active. I mean, of all of the industries, that exist, they're still, thinking that, you know, there is healthcare fraud out there, and they're going to prioritize that. So that that obviously is not new. The healthcare fraud has been, I think, number one for quite some time now.
00;03;41;05 - 00;04;10;07
Meg Pekarske
So, so I thought maybe there there would be some changes there because I think everyone in the industry, especially with hospice and it's beyond just like DOJ stuff. But just like all of this scrutiny of hospice, just like when is this pendulum going to shift back because it's like so aggressive. I mean, with audit, it's like typically everyone has like multiple audits going on at one time.
00;04;10;08 - 00;04;40;27
Meg Pekarske
And you know, they're auditing the same thing. And like you get good results and then you get audited again and the same thing I mean it just as I think people are really hungry for that's come to an equilibrium here. And so this, with my hospice hat on was not welcome because it just because a lot of the case law being made in health care fraud is coming out of the hospice context.
00;04;40;27 - 00;05;08;14
Meg Pekarske
I mean, for the, you know, the size we play in, all of the health care were over represented in false claim, precedent making cases. But, I guess I mean, it's maybe neither here nor there. I'm sure you're seeing and you're helping on a number of, of cases in the health care context, because that's sort of your specialty.
00;05;08;17 - 00;05;25;03
Meg Pekarske
Right. Jonathan, just to, to, refresh our, our listeners, you've been on the podcast numerous times, but, had a specialty in healthcare when you were at the Justice Department, and then you do a lot of that here at the firm as well.
00;05;25;06 - 00;05;49;22
Jonathan Porter
That's correct. Yeah. I would say 90% of my my work here is in the health care industry, helping healthcare providers and other healthcare companies with federal investigations, internal investigations and in the like. You know, I think it's interesting. I look, healthcare fraud has been within DOJ talking points when they talk about white collar enforcement.
00;05;49;22 - 00;06;14;14
Jonathan Porter
And healthcare has definitely been in the talking points for for quite some time now. I don't remember that it's been number one like this year. I think it's number one. And that's surprised me, I guess a little. You know, I was hearing from friends at DOJ a few months back that, you know, because because the administration said we're going to scale back some antitrust work, some securities fraud work, and we're going to move people around.
00;06;14;14 - 00;06;35;25
Jonathan Porter
And I was hearing that that, people were getting moved a into immigration, but also be into health care. And that was an interesting thing to me. I didn't think so. I knew people were moving into health care. I didn't think that it was going to be labeled as the number one priority, which it sort of is in this, in this, this new memo.
00;06;35;28 - 00;06;59;16
Jonathan Porter
You know, to me personally, we're seeing a lot of scams, you know, romance scams, scammers that are impersonating law enforcement, directing, you know, funds transfers, investment scams. I currently have a pro bono client who got scammed out of his entire entire retirement savings. So me personally, I view those blatant scams as uninvestigated and under prosecuted.
00;06;59;21 - 00;07;30;10
Jonathan Porter
I'd me personally, I'd have put those above healthcare fraud. But no one's asking me to set enforcement policy for our country. No. So I mean, he's he's he's. Yeah. Healthcare fraud is is bad. But there are a lot of other bad things going on out there. I think the question to me is, are we going to just sort of say, okay, well, let's investigate the entire healthcare industry, or are we going to get super laser focused and say, all right, there's there's a lot of bad actors.
00;07;30;13 - 00;07;44;17
Jonathan Porter
Let's figure out how we can investigate the bad actors and then leave the sort of gray area actors to other, you know, other types of audits in the like, that that's I think the my, my big question coming out of this is what what does this actually look like?
00;07;44;20 - 00;08;11;26
Meg Pekarske
Yeah. Well, I totally agree with you. I mean, all of these scams that go on where you take people's money and get personation all of you know, all of these, you know, hacks and security breaches and which, you know, impacts millions of people. These, these large scale targeted hacks. And you're like, where is the Justice Department on that?
00;08;11;26 - 00;08;43;05
Meg Pekarske
I mean, it is but obviously this you know what? For every dollar they spend, they get back $4 or $5. So I mean, this this makes money for the government to in a way that probably bringing bringing down some hacker and some other part of the world maybe doesn't. But, so so anyway, healthcare still number one.
00;08;43;08 - 00;08;54;00
Meg Pekarske
Why don't you explain a little bit about there was some revisions described in the memo to the voluntary self-disclosure policy. Do you want to talk a little bit about that?
00;08;54;02 - 00;09;24;22
Jonathan Porter
Sure. So keep in mind, that this is this is the criminal division. And so, you know, the, the, the revisions that we're talking about here are directions to DOJ's criminal division. And so what we're talking about here are criminal self disclosures. There's an entire separate, sort of structure. You've got, you know, you've got a different protocol for, for staff, you different protocol if you're going to OIG to, to self disclose certain other things.
00;09;24;25 - 00;09;48;17
Jonathan Porter
And so and you sometimes you get a contractor. So what we're talking about here in this policy is truly criminal. You know, behavior. And in the old policy, the big the big change here is in the old policy, you had to jump through a lot of hoops, in order to get a in order to get some benefit out of out of the self-disclosure.
00;09;48;20 - 00;10;11;08
Jonathan Porter
Policy. And even then, there was only a presumption that you would get a declination and a a, and action is, hey, we're not we're going to decline to prosecute you. And back then, when there was only a presumption of a declination, DOJ attorneys could wiggle out of that, you know, all sorts of, you know, creative ways.
00;10;11;10 - 00;10;34;14
Jonathan Porter
It happened, a lot. There were some horror stories that went around sort of corporate America saying, hey, we did this voluntary self-disclosure at the end. The, the, you know, AUSA said, too bad we're going to, you know, charge you anyway, there were just all these horror stories that that made their way around and had a bit of a chilling effect because I think a lot of people at that point said, well, we're going to we're going to not disclose.
00;10;34;14 - 00;10;54;19
Jonathan Porter
We're going to, you know, take up, take up, take a risk. And so DOJ, I think they heard that. And they've been slowly trying to get back to a spot where they were. You. There's been encouraging self-disclosure here. One of the big changes here is no longer do those DOJ line attorneys have that presumption language where you're presumed to get a declination.
00;10;54;19 - 00;11;18;01
Jonathan Porter
Instead, the new, the new, policy says if you jump through all these hoops, and, and you meet all of these requirements, it's not a presumption that you'll get a declaration, you will get a declination. And that's a pretty big deal because it takes the DOJ line attorney discretion out of it. It just will, get a declination.
00;11;18;01 - 00;11;40;15
Jonathan Porter
The other big change mag, is, a lot of times if you go through the, DOJ self-disclosure program and you miss one of the many, you know, hoops, if you trip up on one of the hoops, so you've got an aggravating factor or something like that. Or you don't meet the DOJ strict definition of a voluntary self-disclosure.
00;11;40;17 - 00;12;13;18
Jonathan Porter
You at the end, you're sitting there sort of without guidance, and you're just sort of asking DOJ, you know, in the absence of a clear policy, would we still like for you to decline to prosecute? But it really wasn't a lot of like, paper, you know, telling DOJ attorneys what they couldn't, couldn't do this sort of fixes that they have what's called a near miss, recognition in the, in the policy was just look, if you're going through self-disclosure, you're hitting almost everything, but there's just one little hiccup.
00;12;13;21 - 00;12;36;11
Jonathan Porter
You are a near miss. And at that point, we're telling DOJ line attorneys that you still should consider declining to prosecute, even if you're coming really, really close to hitting all of the, all of the requirements. We still think that that you should if you're a near miss, you should strongly consider not prosecuting this this company or individual that's making the self disclosure.
00;12;36;18 - 00;12;43;05
Jonathan Porter
So those are the big that those are the two big changes when it comes to the self-disclosure. Policy.
00;12;43;07 - 00;13;21;25
Meg Pekarske
So just, just and this is sort of a procedural thing. So there's been a lot of talk about what is the, you know, a fact of guidance or things that are not in the statute or the regulation and how binding is that on, you know, providers or the government. And as you're describing this, this and you say like it takes the DOJ lawyers discretion away these it makes it sound like this is very binding to to lawyers who work for the Justice Department.
00;13;21;27 - 00;13;44;24
Jonathan Porter
It certainly it certainly seems as though discretion, a lot of discretion has been removed. And I think that's I think that's in response to some of these horror stories that, that corporate America has been passing around, you know, compliance, audit committees of boards for the last decade or so, these horror stories. And so I, I think it's trying to get the discretion out of it.
00;13;44;26 - 00;13;54;10
Jonathan Porter
The end of the day, DOJ line attorneys, they're always going to have a lot of discretion. But I think this tries its best to sort of remove some of the more egregious stories that are out there.
00;13;54;12 - 00;14;15;20
Meg Pekarske
Well, and it's obviously a public declaration. So you're saying to others, hey, you know, you can waive this in front of your DOJ lawyer because this is what we're, you know, may justice, you know, what our priorities are and how we want to work.
00;14;15;20 - 00;14;33;03
Jonathan Porter
So but I think sometimes that sometimes that backfires. So if you waive the policy to a little bit too hard or fast in front of DOJ, sometimes they'll say, okay, well, I really want to charge. And so maybe the way that I do this is I take something that you've done it, I'm gonna I'm gonna say that's an aggravating factor.
00;14;33;03 - 00;14;56;08
Jonathan Porter
And now sudden you're in a worse situation than you are before cause they're, they're sort of straining themselves to, to find some sort of a, a reason to, to, to to impose a charge. It'll help you. This will certainly help you with the DOJ leadership. If you need to make an appeal to someone else. Yeah. But sometimes with the line level attorneys, this will cause them to say, okay, well, I gotta find some way to bring my discretion back.
00;14;56;08 - 00;14;57;07
Jonathan Porter
Yeah.
00;14;57;09 - 00;15;04;09
Meg Pekarske
Are you saying that there's ego involved with lawyers that, never, never. Right. Of course.
00;15;04;09 - 00;15;07;13
Jonathan Porter
Not. No, of course not. So.
00;15;07;15 - 00;15;24;18
Meg Pekarske
So let's talk about what this memo says about individual liability. And I get confused. Was that the brand memo that talked about individual liability? I can't remember. Anyway, one about.
00;15;24;20 - 00;15;25;23
Jonathan Porter
The Yates memo.
00;15;25;26 - 00;15;56;15
Meg Pekarske
Of the Yates, there's Brandon Yates. Okay. So, and that memo, which I don't know how well that is, was really focused on. Hey, we just want to go, obviously. Yes. Company. We want to hold them accountable. But it was sort of like, I want to find out the mass. I can see who's ground zero and like, go after them.
00;15;56;17 - 00;16;07;18
Meg Pekarske
On an individual level, not just like company level. And so does this. Does this new memo change that or not or tell me your your thoughts.
00;16;07;20 - 00;16;35;21
Jonathan Porter
Yeah. Changes a little bit Meg. You know when the so charging individuals versus companies has has been a long complicated history. You know in theory the issue is this, Meg, in theory, if an individual commits a crime within the scope of his or her employment and for the benefit of the employer, the company can be criminally charged for that, just like the individual can.
00;16;35;23 - 00;16;59;23
Jonathan Porter
It's it's a really it's a it's a the law allows for companies to be charged. But I think how on from a policy perspective, a lot of people have have looked at that and said, I don't know if that's the right outcome. And so DOJ traditionally has exercised its discretion and not imposed criminal charges against companies because there's for a lot of reasons.
00;16;59;25 - 00;17;36;08
Jonathan Porter
But therefore, like the law is really underdeveloped just because it doesn't happen very much. The reason you don't see companies charged very often criminally is because there can be a pretty extreme collateral consequences. And so you could see a, you know, because if you're a safety net hospital, it really doesn't make a whole lot of sense for DOJ to criminally charged a safety net hospital and put them out of business, but take them out of federal programs if it's a mandatory, exclude crime, that at that point you're you're putting patients without a safety net hospital.
00;17;36;10 - 00;17;36;22
Meg Pekarske
For.
00;17;36;24 - 00;17;56;16
Jonathan Porter
All of the employees of the hospital are going to lose their jobs. In the case of a of a, health care company that is, you know, say publicly traded or their or not publicly traded, privately traded. But you've got, you know, some like pension holders that that have their pensions invested in this in this company, which happens a lot.
00;17;56;22 - 00;18;30;04
Jonathan Porter
Do you really want those pensions to go under because you don't because this is a company that had a couple of bad actors doing something within the scope of their employment. So there's all these collateral consequences with criminally charging a company where where historically DOJ has said, well, let's not do that. I think the perception within the Trump administration is that the Biden administration had been charging too many companies, imposing too many monitor ships, and that it was having a negative impact on the economy as a whole.
00;18;30;07 - 00;19;09;16
Jonathan Porter
You know, discouraging companies from taking risks and sort of doing things that that are in the Trump administration's you good for, good for the economy. And so I think what's happening here is the, the, the sort of scales are being tweaked just a little bit where the, where the, the Trump administration is saying, all right, let's not really if, if this is a, if this is a crime and technically you can charge the company if this is like a low level crime and it's not pervasive, then let's charge individuals who are responsible for it and then go, you know, go, go look at something else.
00;19;09;18 - 00;19;31;01
Jonathan Porter
And and so I think that's the big thing with individual liability is this is saying, look, individuals that are committing crimes should be charged, but not necessarily the companies. If it's within the scope of of their of their employment, because there is a lot of discretion there. And so it's sort of like redrawing the lines of where the what the expectations when it comes to that.
00;19;31;04 - 00;19;52;22
Meg Pekarske
Interesting. So this is not this memo isn't getting rid of whistleblowers, despite, you know, what what providers may, may wish for. How do you think a whistleblower, attorney or potential whistleblower would look at this memo?
00;19;52;25 - 00;20;14;27
Jonathan Porter
Yeah. Good question. So the the backdrop here is, a few years back, DOJ criminal Division, they rolled out a pilot program for corporate whistleblowers. That's different than the False Claims Act and provision. And so if you're in this situation, if you're a whistleblower, it doesn't matter if it's health care or whatever. You can if you see a company committing a crime, you can bring it.
00;20;14;27 - 00;20;48;02
Jonathan Porter
You can come forward and have some benefit from that. That pilot program, it really was not in place very long before the Trump administration took over. And there's just been a lot of changes. It's just too early to figure out how effective that pilot program was in the criminal world. Or what's happening here in this memo is the the Justice Department is keeping the structure of the pilot program, but they're adding a bunch of enforcement areas on top of it that, that sort of reflect the Trump administration's view of the world.
00;20;48;04 - 00;21;22;04
Jonathan Porter
And so specifically, what it's doing here is saying if you're if you're part of a company and you know that the company is committing certain types of crimes, now we want you to come forward and report those, and we're going to view those favorably within the context of our of our whistleblower program. So specifically, we're talking about, you know, corporations that are dealing with cartels or other, you know, multinational drug dealing organizations, those corporations that are supporting terrorism, corporations that are, that are violating trade or tariffs, you know, laws and, government fraud is one of them.
00;21;22;04 - 00;21;59;19
Jonathan Porter
And then, they want whistleblowers to come forward and report corporate violations of federal immigration law. That's a that's a that's one that is obviously in the Trump Trump administration's wheelhouse. I actually wrote about that prospect a couple months back for Law360 and said, look, if you're if you're a corporation and you are currently employing unauthorized workers or you think there's a chance that one of your people, might be finding a way to get unauthorized workers through your, you know, E-Verify compliance programs, now's a good time for you to take a look at it, because I think those cases are coming to what's happening here.
00;21;59;19 - 00;22;26;02
Jonathan Porter
Maggie is more or less DOJ wants whistleblowers to report on these certain types of of crimes. It technically didn't rollback any part of the old program. And so you could still go to DOJ with those other types of, of crimes, and they're still going to, you know, do their normal intake process. It's just not one of those things where I like new DOJ leadership is going to be saying, well, yeah, let's go take all of all of those cases.
00;22;26;04 - 00;22;57;25
Jonathan Porter
But what's unchanged here is, is anything having to do with the False Claims Act. And so, you know, those are the key to that process. Still very much in play. In fact, when, when attorney general Pam Bondi went through her Senate confirmation hearings, she told the, the, the Judiciary Committee that she is a big fan of the False Claims Act and she'll be a strong supporter of, of key terms, making sure that they're staffed up the way they need to be.
00;22;57;27 - 00;23;18;09
Jonathan Porter
And so she's already made her made her position on those, clear. But there has been a lot of turnover in DOJ. Michael Grayston just left DOJ. I don't know when we're going to release this, but, you know, in the last couple of weeks, Michael Cranston left. He's been replaced by Brenna Jenny, who is, who is a veteran health care lawyer.
00;23;18;11 - 00;23;39;24
Jonathan Porter
She was in private practice for the last four years and understands that there are some problems with qui tam process. And so I think this is this criminal memo is is probably going to be one part of many revisions that we're going to see in, in sort of how whistleblowers are treated in, in this new DOJ. I think we're going to see more to come.
00;23;39;26 - 00;23;42;27
Jonathan Porter
But so this is just one of many pieces.
00;23;42;29 - 00;24;23;11
Meg Pekarske
Yeah. Well, you're such a wealth of knowledge, right? I mean, with all that, I think we've said in terms of takeaways and what our hospice listeners want to be doing from a compliance standpoint to stay out of, harms way here. It's sort of the same stuff, right? I mean, it's doing, you know, having your compliance plan and having, I think getting an outside, you know, auditor, you know, like consultant to, you know, test your compliance plan.
00;24;23;11 - 00;24;57;02
Meg Pekarske
How effective is it? It's not just, you know, a piece of paper. I think knowing, about complaints, having your hotline and thoroughly investigating those and those kinds of things, because we know, unresolved complaints are a big factor that gets under the craw of folks who then become whistleblowers. And so. So those were the things that I thinking good compliance is still good compliance under this memo.
00;24;57;02 - 00;25;01;10
Meg Pekarske
But any other thoughts from from your perspective?
00;25;01;12 - 00;25;24;16
Jonathan Porter
Yeah. No, Meg, your takeaways are mine as well. I don't think that the you know, hospices listening to this should, should be making, sort of like major changes in hopefully what they're already doing. But I do think now's a good time to just rededicate yourselves to a bunch of sort of core things that I know you tell your clients to do all the time.
00;25;24;19 - 00;25;48;07
Jonathan Porter
But, you know, in addition to the things you said, I would just make sure that you're taking whistleblower complaints seriously. You know, your, your, your biggest risk for key items and the and the the awfulness that is of dealing with a federal investigation and all, you know, everything that goes with that is not really just not keeping your complainants informed.
00;25;48;09 - 00;26;07;10
Jonathan Porter
You know, I think a lot of times when, when your employees use your compliance reporting function, if they feel like if they don't hear from you, sometimes they just assume that bad things are happening or there's a cover up going on. Yeah. And so think about keeping your, your, the people making complaints informed about what's going on.
00;26;07;13 - 00;26;26;19
Jonathan Porter
You know, one of one of the things I really enjoy is working with clients where there's been a compliance complaint, I get to investigate and then go back to the person who made the complaint and explain, how seriously we took it. Here's what I did to to to think about your complaint. Here's why I actually disagree with you.
00;26;26;19 - 00;26;48;23
Jonathan Porter
Or maybe you sometimes I, I agree with you. And here's what what's going to happen out of this doing those things I think is going to save you a lot of time and money in the, in the long run, because people who feel like they've been heard, I think there's less likely to file key terms. And then another takeaway, Meg, and you alluded this earlier, self disclosures I think are really important.
00;26;48;23 - 00;27;13;24
Jonathan Porter
If you've done something wrong. I, I think that a lot of times, going the self disclosure route is going to be important. It depends on who you're making it to. So, you know, if if you've discovered some sort of an overbilling practice that was inadvertent knowing, let's let's go to the, you know, the our local contractor instead of, you know, calling up the Justice Department, you know, knowing how to how to do that, I think is important.
00;27;13;24 - 00;27;37;19
Jonathan Porter
And looping in a lawyer with experience, there can can be, you know, can can be a good investment for you. And then also making sure that your, your when, when it comes to your compliance functions, make sure you're documenting what you're doing. You know, I love it when clients come to me and and I ask them to show me their compliance log and they've got all these complaints, which is great.
00;27;37;19 - 00;27;42;28
Jonathan Porter
I love it when, when, when there are compliance complaints. Zero compliance complaints can be a problem.
00;27;42;29 - 00;27;43;19
Meg Pekarske
Literally.
00;27;43;22 - 00;28;09;15
Jonathan Porter
Yeah. So if you got a bunch of complaints, you show like what you did to investigate and how you closed it out and how you kept everyone informed, that's fantastic. That's what that's the way it's supposed to work. But the big overall takeaway mag, I think, is, you know, these investigations are coming. I really wish we lived in a world where DOJ could, could find a way to go after the really, really bad actors, the ones that wind up on, like John Oliver HBO show.
00;28;09;17 - 00;28;35;26
Jonathan Porter
And and just sort of leave the good actors alone. But unfortunately it doesn't always work like that. So I think what's going to happen here is we're going to see just a lot more investigations involving the health care industry, a lot of investigations involving, you know, good providers, good hospice providers, that that's that it's just going to come and so start making plans now for what do you do when you when these when these come.
00;28;35;26 - 00;28;55;12
Jonathan Porter
Is there something we could do now to to bolster our compliance function. Are there some, you know, compliance reports that, that we've got to sort of take more seriously than we were planning on doing those are the types of things that that I think it's, it's good to, to think about right now. Because unfortunately, I think these investigations, they're just they're just coming.
00;28;55;12 - 00;29;07;17
Jonathan Porter
You don't move a bunch of, DOJ doesn't move a bunch of lawyers into a new field and just let them let them sit there. So these investigations are going to come, before the the good actors and the bad, like.
00;29;07;20 - 00;29;39;04
Meg Pekarske
Well, and I think, when we're talking about what hospice organization should do, we also need to make sure that the board is involved. Obviously, they're not micromanaging, the compliance program, but. Right, that your compliance officer, meets with the board on a regular basis isn't just going through the CEO who reports on that stuff, but you know that boards need to.
00;29;39;04 - 00;30;13;09
Meg Pekarske
And I still think, I know there is two different iterations of that. It was a collaboration between, I think OIG and HLA and, you know, good governance and what boards of health care companies should, know and be involved in and staff. And so I think as, as you think about how is your compliance program living and breathing in your organization, thinking about and what does my board know?
00;30;13;11 - 00;30;47;24
Meg Pekarske
Again, they're not going to get in the weeds of stuff, but they need to generally know what's going on. And I can't iterate enough. What what you you know, I'm echoing what you said, which is, you know, having complaints and making repayments under the 60 day repayment program, I think are evidence of a healthy compliance program. Like if you've never made a repayment to the government and you don't have any complaints that just looks like, yeah, you know, you don't really have a program, right?
00;30;47;24 - 00;31;20;18
Meg Pekarske
Because I think if, someone comes in there, you know, and it's like, show me that you really do compliance people are going to call the hotline and you're going to have investigations. And so I just think, as uncomfortable as that sometimes is, it's like complaints are good. And, you know, repayments, sometimes have to happen because, goodness, we're all humans and we make mistakes.
00;31;20;18 - 00;31;56;20
Meg Pekarske
Right. And, it's just a matter, of life that those things happen. So, so I think it's sort of stay the course, maybe double down on, you know, thinking through what you're doing. And again, I always think the outside perspective of having a consultant, your compliance program, you know, how it looks in action by not just, oh, I talked to the compliance officer, but I actually talked to people and the organization to about what they know and understand about compliance.
00;31;56;20 - 00;32;26;16
Meg Pekarske
So, so I guess what's all this new, again, kind of thing like this seems like a lot the same. And so no real reprieve, for health care under these, this administration as it, as it appears through this memo. But, you know, I guess time will tell. But you will, I'm sure. Keep yourself very, very busy, Jonathan.
00;32;26;18 - 00;32;48;08
Meg Pekarske
And, just to to give you a shout out about because you have your own podcast, too. You're at the firm, where all you do is talk about not health care solely, but just, you know, white collar kind of stuff. So. Right.
00;32;48;10 - 00;33;08;01
Jonathan Porter
Yes. The False Claims Act Insights. I stole your your your your name. I stole your your entire vibe Meg. All of it. Yeah. I'll I'm trying to do my best to to imitate you. So. Yeah. False Claims Act Insights. We're what we do is keep track of of everything that goes on the False Claims Act world.
00;33;08;04 - 00;33;11;29
Jonathan Porter
And I hope, hopefully our listeners enjoy that as well.
00;33;12;02 - 00;33;37;10
Meg Pekarske
Yeah. Well, and I think that, you can, if you don't already get that delivered to your inbox, you can just sign up for that, I'm sure. Just like people do this podcast and then they should listen and then they should like it and subscribe because that always helps a podcast. You know, get traction. And so, endless things to talk about.
00;33;37;10 - 00;33;49;20
Meg Pekarske
And you have some really interesting guests on your podcast, who really give new, new perspectives for I think a lot of our listeners would really appreciate that.
00;33;49;20 - 00;34;03;02
Jonathan Porter
So yes, the the great Bryan, the great Bryan Nowicki joined a week ago and told, our listeners all about payment suspensions and how payment suspensions can impact False Claims Act investigations. So you can go listen to that now if you want to.
00;34;03;05 - 00;34;29;15
Meg Pekarske
Yeah, well Bryan, Bryan is, a one of my favorite podcast partners. He and I have been at this for a long time, so, well, awesome. I, I so appreciate your time and, and your insights. It's always so fun to, to sort of pick your brain about these things because you add much more dimension than I could, glean from from reading this myself.
00;34;29;15 - 00;34;37;24
Meg Pekarske
So, until next time, because I know there's going to be a next time. So, thanks again.
00;34;37;26 - 00;34;43;06
Jonathan Porter
Thanks, Meg.
00;34;43;09 - 00;35;03;17
Meg Pekarske
Well, that's it for today's episode of Hospice Insights: The Law and Beyond. Thank you for joining the conversation. To subscribe to our podcast, visit our website at huschblackwell.com or sign up wherever you get your podcasts. Until next time, may the wind be at your back.