DOJ Enforcement Activity 5 Years After the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency

The Secretary of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) officially declared COVID-19 to be a public health emergency nearly five years ago on Jan. 27,  2020. As the pandemic continued to spread, HHS and Congress responded by enacting regulatory waivers and delivering relief funding for healthcare providers. Since early in the pandemic, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) made clear that it would prioritize enforcement actions targeting fraudulent activity related to these emergency measures. On March 22, 2020, DOJ announced that it had already filed its first such enforcement action.

After nearly five years, DOJ has pursued a handful of complex False Claims Act (“FCA”) cases relating to pandemic fraud, but many cases involved less complex fraudulent schemes and there remain broad areas where DOJ, and whistleblowers, have brought relatively few enforcement actions. As we  approach the half-decade mark since the pandemic began, open questions remain as to whether DOJ has more complex FCA cases in the pipeline as part of a backlog of pandemic fraud.