How to Navigate Healthcare Investigations
Friday, March 13th, 2026
Hi. My name is Brad Howard, and I’m a healthcare attorney at Brown and Fortunato.
Today I’d like to talk about how to defend federal and state health care investigations. The first question is, “Who does the government investigate in the healthcare industry?” And the answer is everybody.
Whether a pharmacy, a DME, a hospital, a home health agency, or a physician, over the course of their career, virtually every healthcare provider will be at some point under some kind of an investigation.
Who conducts most of these investigations? Usually, it’s federal agencies. It can be state agencies, or it can be payers or insurance plans. Whatever your role is in the investigation, it can be serious, whether you’re the target of the investigation, whether they’re investigating the industry that you’re in, or maybe you’re a witness to something that they’re investigating because you do business as somebody who’s under investigation.
Our firm represents healthcare providers around the country when they find out that they are subject to or part of an investigation.
What do healthcare investigators investigate? Well, they investigate alleged violations of federal law, state law, or insurance contracts.
The way that most of these investigations come to your attention is that you or your company will receive a subpoena or a civil investigative demand or, in some very serious cases, a grand jury subpoena.
And these can be issued by federal agencies, state agencies, insurance companies or plans.
How do you respond? Our advice is first and foremost, contact your healthcare attorney. Let them know what you’ve received, whether it’s a subpoena or a phone call, so that they can reach out to the investigator and begin the dialog on your behalf.
Our role at Brown & Fortunato, when we find out that a company is under investigation, is to reach out to the government and establish a good rapport, get a conversation going about what the investigation about, what is our client’s role in the investigation, and what can we do to wrap things up.
A few tips for those of you who might be contacted by the government about an ongoing investigation. First and foremost, be courteous. Don’t ever be rude. Find out the names of the investigators and always get their business cards, because when they leave, you’re not going to remember who was there.
Sometimes the government will show up with a subpoena or a document that shows you’re under investigation, and they want to have a conversation or an interview. It’s always our advice, again, to take their names, get their cards, and let them know that as soon as you’ve contacted your lawyer, you’ll reach back out to continue the conversation with your lawyer by your side.
What should you not do if you find out you’re under investigation? Don’t call other people that might be in the investigation to get your story straight. Don’t try to fix the problem. And in any event, don’t (whether inadvertently or intentionally) make any misrepresentations or lies to the government.
What should you do? Our advice is if you’re contacted by a health care investigator, reach out to your attorney at Brown and Fortunato so we can call the government back and help you to solve this problem.
Thank you.