United States Fourth Circuit

In a physician's appeal of the decision of the Secretary of the United States Department of Health and Human Services excluding him for five years from participating in Medicare, Medicaid, and all other federally sponsored health care programs pursuant to the applicable terms of 42 U.S.C. section 1320a-7(a)(3), after pleading guilty for obtaining free hydrocodone samples from pharmaceutical representatives for his personal use by leading the representatives to believe that he would be giving the samples to his patients for medical purposes, district court's dismissal of the appeal is affirmed where: 1) section 1320a-7(a)(3) is not limited to offenses relating to financial misconduct; and 2) regardless of whether the district court correctly concluded that the statute unambiguously does not require that any fraud relate to financial misconduct ir order to warrant the mandatory five-year exclusion, the Secretary's construction was a permissible one to which the court must defer.

Appellate Information

• Decided 09/11/2012
• Published 09/11/2012

Judges

Court

• United States Fourth Circuit

Counsel