In February, 2006, President Bush signed into law the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (DRA). An obscure provision within this Act mandates that entities receiving greater than $5 million per year in Medicaid payments must educate their employees about “whistleblower” claims under the Federal False Claims Act. Under the DRA, effective January 1, 2007, as a requirement of continued eligibility for the receipt of Medicaid payments, any entity receiving annual payments of $5 million or more in Medicaid funds must have mandatory compliance and education programs in place for its employees to provide detailed information about the Federal False Claims Act. This education must include information provided to employees about administrative remedies, state laws pertaining to civil or criminal penalties, whistleblower protections, and the role of such laws in preventing and detecting fraud, waste, and abuse in federally funded healthcare programs.

According to the Congressional Research Service, the United States has spent to date over $437 billion on the Iraq War. An additional $100 billion is estimated to be spent this year. While much of the money, obviously, goes for troops, a great deal of these amounts has gone to civilian contractors involved in reconstruction efforts in Iraq. But where has the money gone and who is accounting for its proper use?

According to Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, “Eventually we’re going to have a bill

The salutary intent of the Deficit Reduction Act was to require that employers educate employees about the Federal False Claims Act and, hopefully, address fraud and abuse by employer entities receiving $5 million dollars or more in federal funds under the Medicaid program. When the Deficit Reduction Act was passed in 2005, a debate emerged about whether the DRA education provisions mandating employee education about the Federal False Claims Act applied directly to healthcare providers and/or whether states receiving Medicaid had to pass implementing legislation to make the provision effective. In December of 2006, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) set the record straight. An “entity” includes a government agency, organization, unit, corporation, partnership or other business arrangement (including any Medicaid managed care organization, irrespective of the form of business structural or arrangement by which it exists) whether for profit or not for profit, which receives or makes payments under a state plan approved under Title XIX or under any waiver of such plan, totaling at least $5 million annually. In short, states do not have to implement legislation to make the provision effective and any entity receiving $5 million or more annually in Medicaid benefits must implement the mandatory education provision.