Partner Gary Lincenberg and counsel Marc Masters assisted a client of Whistleblower Law Collaborative co-founders, Robert Thomas, Jr. and Suzanne Durrell, along with Hirst Law Group, P.C., to win a $47 million settlement late last year in a whistleblower case against The Ensign Group, Inc., and Ensign Services, Inc., a major skilled nursing facility company.
The decade-long qui tam lawsuit was filed under the federal and California FCA in 2015 accusing Ensign of paying illegal kickbacks to physicians in exchange for patient referrals to its skilled nursing facilities. These payments, disguised as inflated consulting and medical director fees, were allegedly used to drive up patient volume and revenue at the expense of Medicare, Medicaid, and other government healthcare programs.
Mr. Lincenberg commended the client, a former Contracts Manager at Ensign, for her willpower in seeing through the lengthy and emotionally taxing litigation, and his co-counsel for their excellent work.
Read the press release here.
