October 10, 2014
John Schilling, a whistleblower whose “qui tam” case exposed an extensive Medicare fraud accounting scheme by hospital giant HCA, held a press conference this week to explain his opposition to the re-election of Florida Gov. Rick Scott, who was the CEO at HCA when the multi-year fraud was committed. HCA paid the government a total of $1.7 billion to settle all civil and criminal charges, with the final settlement in 2003. At the time, that was the largest healthcare fraud settlement ever.
Schilling and another whistleblower were represented by Phillips & Cohen LLP. They received a total reward of $100 million under the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act for their information and the work on the case by them and their attorneys.