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Whistleblower Protection & Employment
Grande Law Offices has represented and counseled government and private sector whistleblowers both as individual cases and in conjunction with qui tam lawsuits. We are committed to ensuring that workers are protected because of their courageous steps in attempting to stop fraudulent activity.
Grande Law Offices has been at the forefront of litigation aimed at protecting those individuals who report government wrongdoing and are penalized for speaking out. The firm has made a commitment in and out of the courtroom to these individuals to ensure that individual rights to speak out against private and public wrongdoing are preserved. Among Grande Law Offices' recent successes are the following: • Representing an fire inspection safety engineer who was fired because a government contractor was falsifying fire inspection records on military bases in Korea. • Representing a doctor whose contract was not renewed because of complaints about the quality of health care being delivered by the hospital she was working at. • Representing two hospital executives who were fired after complaining about fraudulent Medicare billing. $2.5 Million Recovered in Queens Medicare Fraud Case
Thomas Grande and co-counsel Warren Price of Price Okamoto Himeno & Lum recovered $2.5 million in a qui tam case filed on behalf of two pharmacy technicians at The Queens Hospital in Honolulu.
The case alleged that Queens filed fraudulent Medicare and Medicaid claims by allowing residents to perform unsupervised medical procedures and allowing medications to be prescribed without the authorization of a supervising physician.
"This case ensures that hospitals and doctors will follow public health insurance guidelines for the elderly who are served by Medicare and the poor who are served by Medicaid," said Mr. Grande. "These guidelines ensure that quality and appropriate medical treatment is given to all of our citizens, especially those who are most vulnerable in our population," he said.
The lawsuit was filed under the federal False Claims Act and Hawaii False Claims Act and was settled with the assistance of the United States Attorneys Office and state Medicaid fraud unit.
Edward H. Kubo, Jr., United States Attorney for the District of Hawaii, praised the two whistleblowers for their courage in coming forward with the case.
To see Honolulu Star-Bulletin news coverage, click here. |
