Healthcare accounts for nearly 20% of the U.S. economy. In Violation Tracker we collect cases involving healthcare providers, medical facilities nursing homes, pharmaceutical companies, pharmacies and health insurance companies. The offenses range from mistreatment of patients to improper marketing of drugs. The penalty amounts include fines as well as settlements.
Sources
Violation Tracker contains just over 40,000 healthcare-related cases dating back to 2000, with more than $80 billion in penalties. Ninety-six percent of these cases are related to nursing homes, which has its own mini guide here.
The remaining 1,600 healthcare-related offenses come mostly from federal agencies, especially the Health & Human Services Department (HHS) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), which bring cases against healthcare providers participating in federal healthcare programs. Other federal cases are brought by the Justice Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration against pharmacies that violate the Controlled Substances Act. The Justice Department and the Food and Drug Administration bring cases against pharmaceutical companies and medical equipment manufacturers for improper marketing or defective products.
Non-nursing home healthcare entries account for a small number of state and local cases but a large portion of the penalty dollars. That is because they include some $57 billion in settlements with pharmaceutical companies concerning drug prices and with those same companies plus pharmacies and wholesalers in cases relating to their role in the opioid epidemic.
Search Techniques
Violation Tracker offers multiple ways to locate healthcare cases. In the Basic Search on the homepage, you can combine a company name with the healthcare option in the Offense Group dropdown menu and/or with an agency in the Federal Regulatory Agency dropdown.
On the Summaries page you can retrieve an overview of all healthcare cases from the Offense Group dropdown. You can also find such overviews for the CMS or other agencies from the Federal Agency Summaries or State/Local Agency Summaries dropdowns. The parent company summaries include breakdowns by offense categories, including healthcare.
On the Advanced Search page you can combine a company name and other variables with the healthcare choice in the Offense Group dropdown. Or, if you’re looking for more specific types of healthcare offenses, you can narrow your search using the Offense Type dropdown. These include healthcare offenses related to: Controlled Substance Act violations, healthcare price transparency violations, HHS civil monetary penalties, Medicare Coverage Gap Discount Program violations, Medicare Parts C and D Enforcement Actions, and off-label or unapproved promotion of medical products. You can also use the Full Text search box to search the names of specific healthcare laws or issues (such as controlled substances) mentioned in the description field of the individual entries. Use the level of government dropdown to limit your search to federal, state or local cases.
