On Wednesday, July 2, 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced the creation of a DOJ-HHS False Claims Act Working Group. The Working Group is a procedural mechanism to further President Trump’s policy objectives through the use of the False Claims Act (FCA). The Working Group will be comprised of leadership from the HHS Office of General Counsel, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Center for Program Integrity, the Office of Counsel to the HHS Office of Inspector General, and the DOJ’s Civil Division.

The Working Group’s priority enforcement areas will include the more traditional targets, like fraud and kickbacks, but will also target substantive practices the administration is focused on deterring, including:

• Medicare Advantage
• Drug, device, or biologics pricing, including arrangements for discounts, rebates, service fees, and formulary placement and price reporting
• Barriers to patient access to care, including violations of network adequacy requirements
• Materially defective medical devices that impact patient safety
• Manipulation of Electronic Health Records systems to drive inappropriate utilization of Medicare-covered products and services

The press release announcing the False Claims Act Working Group makes clear the above priority enforcement areas are in addition to the priority False Claims Act matters announced in the June 11, 2025, DOJ memorandum (Memo) from Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate to DOJ Civil Division employees. The Memo directed Civil Division attorneys to focus on investigation and enforcement actions prioritizing:

1. combatting discriminatory practices and policies, specifically those related to DEI initiatives;
2. ending antisemitism; 
3. protecting women and children, specifically against “Gender Ideology Extremism” and “Surgical Mutilation;”
4. ending sanctuary jurisdictions; and
5. prioritizing denaturalization.

The timing of the False Claims Act Working Group announcement, coming only weeks after the June 11 Memo, signals the Working Group will serve as the procedural mechanism to implement the Civil Division’s Enforcement Priorities and advance President Trump’s related policy objectives. To this end, the Working Group intends to “maximize cross agency collaboration to expedite ongoing investigations in these priority areas and identify new leads, including by leveraging HHS resources through enhanced data mining and assessment of HHS and HHS-OIG report finding.”

The Working Group is also charged with analyzing whether, and under what circumstances, HHS should implement payment suspensions pursuant to 42 C.F.R. § 405.370 et seq. or DOJ should move to dismiss qui tam complaints under 31 U.S.C. § 3730(c)(2)(A). The qui tam issue appears to be a response to Senator Chuck Grassley’s letter to Attorney General Bondi on February 7, 2025, in which he expressed concern regarding DOJ’s ability to intervene “at any point in litigation – even years into litigation – and dismiss FCA cases unrelated to the merits.” The Senator requested the DOJ to review DOJ qui tam cases dating back to June 2023 with pending Biden-Harris Justice Department motions to dismiss. It is unknown whether DOJ intends to perform such a review at this time, but the Working Group could provide a mechanism for early assessment of qui tam matters.

The False Claims Act Working Group is likely to follow the blueprint of other Trump Administration initiatives and will aggressively pursue perceived violators with novel approaches. Companies receiving government funds should keep apprised of the Working Group’s priorities and publicized determinations to reduce the risk of being the subject of an enforcement action themselves.