United States of America ex rel. Uri Bassan v. Omnicare, Inc.
- Colleen McMahon
- 1:15-cv-04179
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Bassan v. Omnicare, Judge Figueredo deferred six discovery disputes for discussion at a later conference.
The order concerned the United States, the defendants Omnicare, Inc. and CVS Health Corp., and the parties’ handling of discovery in the case.
What happened
In United States of America ex rel. Uri Bassan v. Omnicare, Inc., the defendants sent the court a letter identifying six disputes about the government’s discovery responses. The defendants said the government’s claims concern prescription medications, documentation, and healthcare-agency practices.
The defendants asked the court to require the government to review additional emails, use proposed search terms, broaden its audit-document search, complete production of third-party documents, and clarify searches and productions involving the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the Defense Health Agency. These requests were arguments by the defendants, not findings by the court.
Judge Valerie Figueredo did not decide the six disputes in this order. She stated that they would be addressed at the October 13, 2022 discovery conference and set deadlines for the government’s response and for raising other disputes.
The detailed version
- United States of America ex rel. Uri Bassan v. Omnicare, Inc. · No. 1:15-cv-04179
- Colleen McMahon
- Sept. 21, 2022
Background
The defendants submitted a letter concerning six discovery disputes in the case. The letter stated that the government’s claims depend on allegations that Omnicare dispensed prescription medications to residents of long-term-care facilities using documentation that violated applicable state laws, and that federal healthcare agencies would have considered that documentation materially improper for payment purposes. The defendants disputed both premises. The opinion text reflects these assertions as the defendants’ positions; it does not resolve them.
Discovery requests
The defendants asked the court to require the government to:
- Review and produce emails from two custodians affiliated with Express Scripts, Inc., which the defendants said performed audits for the Defense Health Agency’s TRICARE program.
- Review emails from 21 additional custodians whom the defendants identified based on government disclosures and interrogatory responses.
- Use search terms proposed by the defendants for the government’s email review.
- Search for Defense Health Agency audits that accepted a pharmacy’s or health plan’s documentation or explanation, rather than searching only for audits with a final “discrepancy code.”
- Certify that it had produced all documents received from third parties during the government’s investigation that were responsive to the defendants’ first document request, or produce missing documents.
- Clarify which requests for production would receive documents from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and confirm that both the Centers and the Defense Health Agency would search email and non-email records.
Court’s action
The magistrate judge’s endorsement did not grant or deny these discovery requests. It stated that the issues raised in the letter would be addressed at the October 13, 2022 discovery conference. It also allowed the government to respond by September 30, 2022, and directed the parties to raise any other disputes in a joint letter by October 11, 2022. This was a procedural discovery order, not a decision on the underlying healthcare or prescription-documentation claims.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.