18 U.S.C. 1347, 42 U.S.C. §1320a–7b
After discovery in your health care fraud case has been reviewed and communication has been had with the prosecution, the next step is to decide on a course of action. Your decision at this stage of the health care fraud case is extremely important and will dictate the ultimate outcome of your case.
STEP FOUR: Plea Negotiation
Health Care Fraud in Miami or Fort Lauderdale
Once the health care fraud case has been investigated and discovery has been reviewed, your attorney will need to make further contact with the prosecution. At this stage, it is important to initiate plea negotiations unless that has already been initiated due to the specific demands of your particular health care fraud case.
In order to conduct the best plea negotiation possible, your criminal attorney will need to determine, at least from a rudimentary and initial perspective, how you will likely score according the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, should you plead guilty or were you convicted at trial.
Using this information, your criminal attorney will need to begin the lengthy back and forth with prosecutors that is common to all cases, including health care fraud.
Given the fact that plea negotiations vary widely from health care fraud case to health care fraud case and health care fraud defendant to health care fraud defendant, it is impossible to predict what issues, opportunities, and problems will arise in yours.
Regardless, the bottom line is this: your criminal attorney needs to get the prosecution to make you their best possible offer.
STEP FIVE: Plea Agreement or Jury Trial
Health Care Fraud in Miami or Fort Lauderdale
The decision to proceed to trial on a health care fraud case is a very serious one. In criminal court, if you go to trial and lose, you typically get a worse sentence than if you had plead guilty. Specifically, when someone pleads guilty in Federal courtbefore trial, they get a 2-3 level reduction for acceptance of responsibility, depending on other facts present in the case. Aside from this reduction, judges typically sentence criminal defendants to much more serious prison terms once they are found guilty of health care fraud after trial than if they had plead guilty before trial.
The reason for this difference is simple: the courts give criminal defendants a motive to resolve their cases without the need for a trial. If such motivations did not exist, then every defendant would go to trial (because they would have nothing to lose and only everything to gain) and the criminal courts would shut down from overload. The resources to go to trial on every health care fraud case simply do not exist.
The ultimate decision a person must discuss with his/her criminal attorney is whether or not there is a realistic likelihood of defeating the prosecution’s claim of health care fraud at trial. If the chances of winning are great, then it may pay to go to trial on your health care fraud case. If the chances of winning are slim, then one should not go to trial.