United States v. Krizek

Following the district court's finding of FCA liability against psychiatrist Dr. Krizek and his wife for submitting poorly documented Medicare bills, the government appealed the resulting penalty as too low under its preferred definition of "claim" (which would have reached $81 million against actual damages of roughly $245,000), while the Krizeks cross-appealed the district court's method of treating each CPT billing code as a separate claim for penalty purposes. The district court had assessed $168,105 in penalties after finding the Krizeks liable for knowingly submitting false claims.