Georgia Employment Law Blog

Due to its origins during the Civil War, the False Claims Act (FCA) is sometimes called “Lincoln’s Law.” Those who run afoul of the FCA may be defrauding the government.

Fraud often occurs in the health care sector such as in Medicare or Medicaid. However, pharmaceutical companies are among the primary offenders, and whistleblowers bring their misdeeds to light.

There is often no reason a woman who is pregnant isn't capable of working as usual, but sometimes employers discriminate against pregnant employees. There is actually a variety of ways that pregnant women experience workplace discrimination.

The law protects pregnant women from discrimination. A pregnancy discrimination lawyer is a professional who focuses on this particular area of the law, and it is a good idea to schedule a legal consultation to discuss the particulars of your case

Sometimes, employees discover that their employer is engaging in illegal practices, such as fraud. This can put the employee in a complicated position in which he or she must decide what to do with this knowledge. 

The federal government has a program to help employees who suspect their employer is committing fraud that harms the government. If you suspect your employer is committing fraud and you want to know how to proceed in terms of properly reporting this suspicion, here is some information that can help guide you.

You might suspect that someone in your company is committing a form of wrongdoing, but you either lack the proof or you fear that reporting it may come back to you in the form of retribution. Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon fear for those working in government positions. Government fraud is also common, ranging from untruthful benefits recipients to employees or managers defrauding the entities they work for. Your connection to government work in Georgia makes it important to understand the different types of fraud that can cost the government - and consumers - billions of dollars.

Government fraud is largely financially-driven. For example, health care practitioners might receive additional compensation by providing false or misleading information on their claims forms, or ordinary consumers may be dishonest in filling out applications or reporting changes in their income to receive government benefits. Some of the types of government fraud you might witness can include the following:

• Medicaid and Medicare fraud - false claims by recipients, health care practitioners overcharging for services or prescriptions
• Health care, hospital and pharmaceutical fraud - practitioners overcharging or charging for services not rendered, charging for patients who do not exist, charging for a service that was medically unnecessary, charging for an expensive prescription when the drug was a generic version
• Financial industry fraud - money laundering, false or fraudulent mortgage claims through the Federal Housing Administration, false certification of eligibility for government funding, failing to follow funding regulations
• Construction fraud - providing substandard materials and workmanship, falsifying documents and progress reports, not following contract regulations, accepting bribes or illegal kickbacks
• Energy fraud - falsifying research data or other information for grant purposes, defrauding the government of gas and oil royalties, using grant money for personal reasons