A federal judge ordered the redaction of two physicians’ names from all unsealed filings in a dismissed qui tam case under the False Claims Act, a departure from how courts have typically ruled on such requests, according to a Sept. 7 news release from the law firm Holland & Knight.
In a lawsuit filed under seal in May 2021 in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, two relators alleged Health First entities and two orthopedic surgeons overbilled Medicare and Medicaid by billing outpatient-eligible procedures as inpatient care, according to court documents reviewed by Becker’s.
Over the next four years, the government filed 10 requests to extend its intervention period before the federal and state governments declined to intervene in February 2026. The relators then voluntarily dismissed the case with prejudice. No defendant was served, no dispositive motions were filed and neither physician had a chance to respond to the allegations, the release said.
All parties asked the court to permanently seal the case, then sought redacted unsealing, replacing the physicians’ names with pseudonyms in public filings, after a magistrate judge requested additional briefing. Magistrate Judge Nathan Hill denied that request April 24, finding the parties failed to show a “legitimate privacy interest” or harm sufficient to outweigh the public’s interest in the records, according to court documents.
Senior District Judge Gregory Presnell reversed Mr. Hill’s ruling July 13, finding he should have weighed the public’s interest in the physicians’ specific identities rather than in FCA cases generally, and gave “insufficient weight to the privacy interests that the Doctors detailed in their sworn declarations,” including harm to patient trust, referral relationships, credentialing, licensing and payer contracts, according to the documents.
The Holland & Knight release said the ruling departs from the prevailing approach in False Claims cases, under which courts in multiple jurisdictions, including the District of Columbia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and New York, have denied similar redaction requests. The release said the decision is fact-specific and its broader applicability to other cases remains uncertain.
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