Earlier this year, at the same time the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the largest health care fraud and opioid enforcement action in the agency’s history, it also announced the creation of the National Rapid Response Strike Force (NRR Strike Force) within its own Health Care Fraud Unit of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section.
The DOJ has historically used health care strike force operations to focus attention on the “worst offenders engaged in fraudulent activities.” The NRR Strike Force is the latest Strike Force introduced as part of the Health Care Fraud Strike Force Model and will focus on a variety of fraudulent activities, including health care fraud, wire fraud, mail fraud, and bank fraud. All of the strike forces, including the NRR Strike Force, will use a combination of traditional investigative techniques and data analytics to identify and investigate fraudulent activity.
The NRR Strike Force will oversee the investigation and criminal prosecution of both individuals and corporations and will work with other divisions of both the DOJ as well as government agencies, including the DOJ Civil Division’s Fraud Section, the DOJ Civil Division’s Consumer Protection Branch, state Medicaid Fraud Control units, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG), and United States Attorney’s Offices around the country.
The NRR Strike Force will also focus on those who seek to criminally capitalize on the current COVID-19 health pandemic through health care fraud and related financial schemes, such as those who obtained funds from the Paycheck Protection Program via fraudulent loan applications.
One of the things that makes this Strike Force more unique than its predecessors is that it involves multiple jurisdictions, instead of one specific locale (such as Los Angeles, Brooklyn, Chicago, Miami/Tampa/Orlando etc.). Without jurisdictional restraints like prior Strike Forces, it is likely that we will see more variety in the issues the NRR Strike Force chooses to take up and investigate.
What Does This Mean?
While it is impossible to know for sure what to expect from this new breed of Strike Force, it is likely that there will be an increase in enforcement activity by the Fraud section in the coming months and years. It is also possible that by working with U.S. Attorney’s Offices, the NRR Strike Force may alleviate some of the burden on local prosecutors’ offices to investigate fraud cases in their jurisdictions.
By establishing the NRR Strike Force, the DOJ indicates its continued commitment to enforcing the conditions of funds received by individuals and corporations from the government. Corporations would be well-advised to carefully review the terms of all funds received from the government to ensure compliance with program rules. The continued disbursement of previously approved COVID-19 financial aid (and the possibility of any more financial aid in the future) will likely be accompanied by an increase in COVID-19-related civil enforcement actions. Most of the enforcement actions we have seen so far have been focused on the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans and online scams selling products that became hard to find during the pandemic.