The state of Texas has been ordered to pay three whistleblowers more than $37 million in a 13-year-old case relating to Medicaid fraud alleging improper billings by dentists and corporate dental chains.
State District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble of Travis County on Dec. 19 handed down the award, which amounts to 17.5% of a record 2019 settlement of more than $200 million the state reached with Xerox State Healthcare, formerly known as ACS State Healthcare.
According to a news release from the lawyers who represented whistleblowers Alexandra Alvarez, Joshua LaFountain and Christine Ellis, the state had settled the lawsuit but balked at paying a percentage of the award proceeds to those who had brought the allegations to light as required by a provision in a state fraud prevention law.
We still haven’t seen a dime of this whistleblower money; thank you Paxton and the additional millions spent on appeals by the state. Must be nice to be able to burn through tax payers dollars on state lawyers to drag this out ad infinitum. I feel like that entire situation is another thing worth investigating. The state deposed me for EIGHT HOURS just for me to listen to their lawyer read me my lawsuit and ask after every sentence “is that correct?” I wonder how much he got paid for the idiotic waste of time. Ironically my tax dollars probably paid his salary for him to bore me to tears just so the state could “appeal” yet again.