Texas Court Wipes Out $48 Million Whistleblower Medicaid Award

Three whistleblowers will get nothing from Texas’ $236 million Medicaid fraud settlement with Xerox because the state relied on media reports, not their knowledge, to bring the case, the statewide intermediary appeals court ruled.

Tuesday’s unanimous opinion wipes out the combined $48 million a trial court awarded them for disclosing Xerox’s failures to confirm Medicaid eligibility in orthodontics services.

“We hold that the news reports publicly disclosed evidence of a fraudulent transaction by Xerox,” Justice April Farris wrote.

The dispute over the 2019 settlement marks the first time a Texas court interpreted a statute governing the quality of information a ...