Investigations into your practice may uncover several wrong practices. It is important to understand your liability for each specific wrong act so you should talk to our experienced health care attorney that will be able to outline if your liability will be criminal.

 An investigation into your practice can come in many forms such as an audit, undercover investigations, patient interviews or interviews with your workers. When any of your workers are speaking to an investigator, it may be a prudent investment to retain an attorney to represent all of your workers. 

If one of your workers incriminate themselves or the company, you may face liability so having our attorneys represent all of your workers could help you in the long run.

It is also important to understand the difference between an attorney representing you, your practice or your employees. If you retain the same attorney to represent all of these parties, it may help coordinate efforts, but there is a chance you might want to distance yourself from an employee who was participating in illegal activities.

 You should work to audit or investigate internally to make sure you are in compliance with all of the health care laws. You should look into and routinely check on all of your employees to ensure compliance. This type of review of your own company can ensure compliance and help you to address any current problems.

 If you or your practice are suspected of violating a health care law, the government may begin an investigation. In these types of investigations, there are many potential pitfalls because your practice may have multiple different people that may be interviewed or questioned. For your own liability, you should work with your own attorney to figure out liability.

 A government investigation will also likely involve questioning. If you or any of your employees are questioned, you may request to have an attorney present for questioning. An attorney will help assert your rights and make the questioning process much easier for you.

 An experienced attorney will help you throughout a government investigation by helping to work to assess the evidence and to help plan a strategy to deal with the investigators. Just because you are under investigation, it does not mean that you have done anything wrong or that you will get charged. 

However, having an attorney from the onset of an investigation may increase your odds of defeating any healthcare fraud allegations. Through audits, investigations, and whistleblower suits evidence of criminal activity may come up, and charges may be brought against you. If the Attorney General’s Office feels that there is enough evidence, they will bring charges.

 After charges are brought there will be a grand jury hearing where the grand jury will decide if there is enough evidence to indict. Before a grand jury hearing, it is important to speak to an attorney to help you prepare for the hearing because there is a chance to get the charges dropped during the grand jury hearing.

When you have been indicted, your attorney and the government may work towards a settlement on the case or move towards dismissal of the case. If there is no settlement or dismissal, your case will most likely end up getting a trial date. Your attorney should work with you to review all of the evidence and prepare your best defense for trial. 

For all of your criminal convictions, you will also have the right to have a trial before a jury of your peers.       

You with the assistance of your attorney need to get ahead of allegations of violations of healthcare laws. As an owner, it might be wise to have our law firm on retainer for you and your practice to work at the onset of any investigation. It is critical to work at every stage from investigation to a potential trial to try and defeat the allegations against you.

 If you are convicted, it you will not only suffer criminal fines, but jail time and money loss as well, which is why it is important to hire the best attorneys possible to defend you. Also, your attorney should be proactive to make sure you are also in compliance with the law to avoid problems in the first place.

 As an owner, if you find any of your workers are not in compliance with the law, you should work with an attorney to remedy these problems. The owner is usually the one who can make the final say on your employee’s practices, so you should set strict guidelines with disciplinary action, if the employees are not in compliance.

 You should with the assistance of an attorney work to also know if and when you should report your employees’ actions to the authorities. The implications on you, if you are condoning illegal activity, can be severe. So, working to avoid and distance yourself from these situations is advised.

 Patients and loved ones are often the source of complaints against medical practices. A simple mistake or something more severe may trigger an investigation following complaints. Understanding what happened, what was reported and what the authorities are searching for is important in a criminal investigation. 

An attorney will help sort out what discrepancies there are and work with the authorities to help remedy or explain any potential problems.

 When you are under investigation and get charged, the prosecutor may charge you under multiple statutes to see what sticks. An experienced attorney should know how to handle these multiple charges: for example, if the crimes overlap, or if there are unfounded crimes listed, the attorney will work to get these excess charges dropped.

 As an owner of a medical facility, it is extremely important to understand what the implications are against you personally, as opposed to the group, as a whole, as well as against certain employees. For any criminal conviction, the prosecutor will need to show that you specifically acted or failed to act to commit an offense. 

If there were a case against you, a possible defense would be that you were not the one who committed the offense – showing you did not have the culpable mental state and you committed no illegal action.