Host Jonathan Porter welcomes Husch Blackwell partner Drew Canning to discuss False Claims Act risk from the boardroom perspective. While most FCA episodes focus on legal theories, enforcement trends, or specific cases, this conversation examines the strategic and operational decisions that boards and executives make every day—decisions that can either prevent FCA exposure or inadvertently create it. For board members, general counsels, and executives overseeing organizations that receive federal funds, this episode offers practical guidance on navigating FCA risk at the decision-making level.
Host Jonathan Porter welcomes Husch Blackwell partner Drew Canning to discuss False Claims Act risk from the boardroom perspective. While most FCA episodes focus on legal theories, enforcement trends, or specific cases, this conversation examines the strategic and operational decisions that boards and executives make every day—decisions that can either prevent FCA exposure or inadvertently create it. For board members, general counsels, and executives overseeing organizations that receive federal funds, this episode offers practical guidance on navigating FCA risk at the decision-making level.
We begin with strategic decision-making under uncertainty. Drew walks through a scenario many boards face: your company wants to acquire a business with questionable billing practices. How do you help the board decide whether to fix the problems post-acquisition or walk away entirely? We discuss the due diligence process, how to quantify FCA risk in acquisition modeling, and when regulatory uncertainty becomes too significant for a board to reasonably accept. This isn’t theoretical—these decisions happen regularly in healthcare, government contracting, and other industries where federal funds flow, and getting them wrong can mean inheriting someone else’s FCA liability.
Next, we examine operational decisions that create FCA exposure, often without anyone realizing it at the time. Drew explores where the line sits between reasonable cost-cutting and cutting compliance too thin. We discuss how budget decisions, staffing levels in compliance departments, and pressure to meet financial targets can quietly create the conditions for billing errors or certification failures that later become FCA cases. We also tackle a cutting-edge issue: what FCA risks do health systems face when deploying AI for coding and billing? As organizations increasingly adopt AI tools to improve efficiency, boards need to understand that these technologies can scale compliance failures just as easily as they scale legitimate operations.
Our conversation then turns to the compliance investment dilemma. How does a board know if it’s spending enough on compliance? Drew explains that there’s no magic formula or industry benchmark that works across the board, but there are warning signs when compliance resources are inadequate: high turnover in compliance roles, repeated billing errors, or compliance staff consistently raising concerns that get overruled by operations or finance. We discuss the concept of "good enough" compliance and when that mindset actually becomes a problem, particularly in industries where the government is a major payor and FCA exposure is always present.
We close by examining culture, incentives, and accountability. Drew discusses how boards should respond when a compliance failure comes to light—is termination always the answer, or are there situations where retraining and process improvement make more sense? We explore how boards can structure incentives that don’t inadvertently reward behavior that creates FCA risk, and how to ensure the board is getting the full picture from management rather than a sanitized version that downplays problems. Drew emphasizes that boards need to create an environment where compliance concerns can surface early, before they become government investigations.
Throughout the episode, we focus on practical, actionable guidance rather than abstract legal theory. The decisions boards make about acquisitions, cost structure, compliance investment, and organizational culture have direct FCA implications, and this episode equips listeners to recognize and manage those risks before they become enforcement actions.
Jonathan Porter | Full Biography
Jonathan focuses on white collar criminal defense, federal investigations brought under the False Claims Act, and litigation against the government and whistleblowers. He draws on his experience as a former federal prosecutor to guide clients in sensitive and enterprise-threatening litigation. At the Department of Justice, Jonathan earned a reputation as a top white-collar prosecutor and trial lawyer and was a key member of multiple international healthcare fraud takedowns and high-profile financial crime prosecution teams. He also teaches white-collar crime as an adjunct professor of law at Mercer University School of Law.
Drew Canning | Full Biography
Drew offers clients legal solutions alongside healthcare regulatory experience. He practices from Cincinnati, Ohio as a member of our virtual office, The Link. Drew regularly advises hospitals, health systems, payors, and providers on transactional and regulatory matters including health care affiliations, mergers, acquisitions and changes of control; licensure and certification; payor reimbursement; compliance with Stark Law and Anti-Kickback Statute; and state health boards oversight and enforcement. With firsthand knowledge of how quickly healthcare law changes and the challenges companies face in responding, Drew now brings this insight to clients from the other side of the table. He especially enjoys that, in healthcare matters, all parties are working toward the greater good of patient care.