Connecticut’s Largest Law Firm Using Preventive Medicine to Block Exposure to Health Care Fraud

Connecticut's largest law firm is tapping expertise from each of its offices to create a special task force to address health care investigations by federal and state authorities. The task force of lawyers will work with clients to develop preventive techniques that would limit client exposure to onerous federal and state investigations.

Stanley A. Twardy, Jr., a partner with the Hartford-based Day, Berry & Howard, noted that federal and state authorities recently have announced efforts to step up investigations of alleged fraud by physicians, hospitals, nursing homes, HMOs, pharmaceutical companies and other healthcare entities.

He noted that the federal government recently has appropriated millions of dollars for ferreting out improprieties in health care billing practices. Also, Connecticut Atty. Gen. Richard Blumenthal recently created a health care fraud unit in his office. The attorney general alleges fraud by hospitals and doctors costs Connecticut taxpayers an estimated $1.5 billion annually, and he has established a special telephone line for people to report suspected fraud.

"Day, Berry & Howard's task force will advise clients on how to reduce their exposure to these investigations," said Twardy. "We're drawing expertise from lawyers in all our offices – Hartford, Stamford and Boston – for this effort. We have the background and knowledge to deal effectively with government investigations as well as to understand the health care issues of our clients."

Twardy, who is based in Day, Berry & Howard's Stamford office, has been named to head the firm's Health Care Fraud Task Force. He is a former U.S. Attorney for Connecticut. The group also includes three former Assistant U.S. Attorneys: Michael Considine and Andrew Gaillard, both in the firm's Stamford office, and Frank Libby, who is in the firm's Boston office. David J. Elliott, Robert G. Siegel and Rebecca Mathews Parent in the Hartford office and H. Lawrence Tafe III in the Boston office complete the task force membership.

Twardy noted that federal investigations into health care have been characterized by words like "fraud," "abuse" and "racketeering." These words, he said, create fear among health care organizations.

"Some simple acts like providing coffee and doughnuts in the doctors' lounge of a hospital can technically be deemed as fraud. The rationale by federal investigators could be that the providing of coffee and doughnuts is used by the hospital to encourage doctors to refer their Medicare and Medicaid patients there," Twardy said. "Our task force will make recommendations about how our clients can prevent exposure by eliminating seemingly innocuous, but potentially troublesome, procedures and practices."

However, he said, in the event that clients do become the focus of an investigation, Day, Berry & Howard's Health Care Fraud Task Force has the expertise to help them navigate their way through the problem.

"Health care organizations, like most anyone else, believe that nothing bad like a health care fraud investigation will happen to them. They believe it only will happen to the other guy," he said. "Unfortunately, it will happen to all of them unless they take affirmative steps to prevent it."

Day, Berry & Howard is the largest law firm in Connecticut and the fifth largest law firm in New England, with more than 225 attorneys in offices in Hartford, Stamford and Boston.