On September 9, 2015, Deputy U.S. Attorney General Sally Yates issued a memo entitled “Individual Accountability for Corporate Wrongdoing” to all of the Department of Justice’s prosecutors and civil litigators.

Known now simply as the Yates Memo, this directive signaled a new priority in the DOJ’s pursuit of corporate wrongdoing – a priority of pursuing, punishing and deterring individual wrongdoers in addition to their corporate employers.

“Fighting corporate fraud and other misconduct is a top priority of the U.S. Department of Justice. … One of the most effective ways to combat corporate misconduct is by seeking accountability from the individuals who perpetrated the wrongdoing.” With these simple, straightforward words by Yates, health care executives and administrators were put on notice that the DOJ will continue to leverage and coordinate its extensive resources in order to identify and pursue individuals who may be responsible for corporate wrongdoing.

And now nearly a year later, some corporate executives have learned of the Yates Memo, and the equivalent federal policies that preceded it, the hard way.

On Oct. 25, 2007, more than 200 agents from the FBI and other federal and state agencies raided WellCare’s headquarters and began a six-year investigation into the handling of state and federal money meant for behavioral care for the poor.

Investigators said that by law, WellCare was required to spend 80 percent of the money it received from the state of Florida for mental health services directly on patients. Twenty percent could go to administrative costs and profits. If less than 80 percent of the money was spent on care, it was to be returned to the state.

Authorities said WellCare funneled millions of dollars to a subsidiary, disguising expenditures to avoid returning unused money to the tune of $40 million. A whistle-blower’s lawsuit put the figure at $400 million to $600 million.

In May 2009, WellCare agreed to pay $80 million to avoid conviction on a charge of conspiracy to defraud the Florida Medicaid program and the Florida Healthy Kids Corp., a program for low-income children. The same month, the company paid $10 million to settle a lawsuit from the Securities and Exchange Commission and was forced to restate several years of income downward as a result of the fraud. In June 2010, the company agreed to pay $137.5 million to the U.S. Department of Justice and other federal agencies to settle civil lawsuits.

But the federal effort went way beyond just the corporate identity. WellCare executives were ultimately indicted on charges of conspiracy to commit Medicaid fraud and making false statements. And a federal appeals court just upheld the convictions of four health care executives found guilty.

A 124-page opinion issued this month by a 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed their convictions and found “overwhelming evidence” that the WellCare executives participated in a scheme to file false Medicaid expense reports.

Convicted were former WellCare CEO Todd Farha; former Chief Financial Officer Paul Behrens; William Kale, vice president of a subsidiary and former WellCare vice president Peter Clay.

The court found that the defendants overstated the amounts spent on Medicaid services on invoices, which allowed the company to keep millions of dollars in tax-subsidized funds that should have been refunded. The court rejected the defendants’ argument that their actions were simple routine contractual and regulatory disagreements.

The advice for the non-convicted corporate executives that orchestrate schemes of health care fraud is simply this. Read the Yates Memo !