Guilty V. Graber's Argument For The 1977

The law states that anyone who knowingly and willfully offers to pay any remuneration…. for the purpose of inducing another person… shall be guilty of a felony. According to Mandelkern (1999) The 11th Circuit held that,,,,the government need only prove that the defendant had knowledge that his or her conduct was unlawful and need not prove that the defendant knew that the conduct specifically violated the anti-kickback statute. Yet in this case the court held that a more expansive reading is consistent with the impetus for the 1977 amendment (Showalter) and that intent to induce needed to be shown. The intent of the law is to prevent incentive for one individual to provide services solely to another individual. Distinguishing intent can be …show more content…
With regard to Dr. Graber, there were clearly services that were paid for that were never rendered and the fact that the fees were higher than allowed by Medicare also spoke to the intent that Dr. Graber was trying to induce business. Paying free market value for services does lend itself to the avoidance of the appearance of inducements or kickbacks. However, the fact that the physicians were being paid for interpretation of results which were performed already by Dr. Graber speaks to an illegal payment. Even if the amount had been an in acceptable Medicare rate. Furthermore although not discussed in this case the other relevant facts including the billing fraud with regard to the length of the procedures, does speak to the fact of a current of underlying fraud which does lead to intent. In order to avoid the appearance of inducements, each physician should bill Medicare directly for their services, eliminating Dr. Graber from the equation and preventing the appearance of fraudulent