Combating health care fraud will continue to be a priority for the Jeff Sessions-led Department of Justice (DOJ).

DOJ Criminal Division’s Acting Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Blanco, in a May 18 speech at the ABA’s Institute on Health Care Fraud, said that Attorney General Jeff Sessions “feels very strongly” that “health care fraud is a priority for the Department of Justice.”

Blanco called health care fraud “despicable” and said, “the investigation and prosecution of health care fraud will continue; the department will be vigorous in its pursuit of those who violate the law in this area.”

Blanco continued, “I can tell you that [Attorney General Sessions] has expressed this to me personally.”

According to the report in the National Law Review, his speech appeared to be designed to address concerns that changes in emphasis in the DOJ Criminal Division towards immigration and violent crime would come at the expense of health care fraud investigations.

He cited three tools that the Justice Department has used for the past several years when discussing the Department’s full-court press to prosecute corporations and individuals who orchestrate and benefit from fraudulent health care schemes:

(1) recent work of the Health Care Fraud Unit, a specialized unit within the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section,
(2) the importance of cooperation between the Medicare Fraud Strike Forces, U.S. Attorney’s Offices, and state and federal investigative agencies, and
(3) the commitment to the use of in-house, real-time data analytics to review CMS data to detect fraudulent billing and emerging fraudulent schemes.

By emphasizing the DOJ’s commitment to combating health care fraud, Mr. Blanco dispelled speculation that the Department might divert resources from this fight, even as Attorney General Sessions prepares to re-order the DOJ’s prosecutorial initiatives.

To illustrate this point, Blanco highlighted recent enforcement actions by the DOJ’s Health Care Fraud Unit against a number of companies and individuals.