Robert K. DeConti (Rob)

Rob DeConti has extensive experience in government healthcare fraud investigations, compliance, diligence, the False Claims Act, the Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS), and regulatory compliance and enforcement issues in relation to healthcare transactions. Rob focuses on all aspects of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) administrative remedies and initiatives, including mandatory and permissive exclusion authorities, the Civil Monetary Penalties Law, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), corporate integrity agreements, Select Agent investigations, drug price reporting cases, and HHS OIG’s health care, grant, and contractor self-disclosure protocols. Rob has been a frequent presenter for many years at major national healthcare and life sciences conferences, conveying the government’s enforcement and compliance priorities.

With over 25 years of experience, including as the former Chief Counsel to HHS OIG, Rob advises healthcare and life sciences companies on complex regulatory and compliance issues. As the highest-ranking attorney for OIG, Rob served as a nationwide expert on the federal government’s development and implementation of health care compliance strategies for health care entities and compliance oversight by health care boards of directors. Rob oversaw all OIG legal services related to audits, investigations, fraud enforcement, and industry guidance. From early in his career as a line attorney with primary responsibility for OIG’s pneumonia upcoding national project, Rob has been significantly involved in many of the federal government’s major healthcare fraud and compliance initiatives over the past 25 years. As Chief Counsel, Rob served as the lead Deputy Inspector General for OIG’s updated compliance program guidance documents, setting forth best practices for entities that do business with the Federal health care programs, including Medicare and Medicaid.

Before his role as Chief Counsel, he served for more than a decade as an Assistant Inspector General (AIG) for Legal Affairs. In that position, he was the signatory for OIG advisory opinions on the application of OIG's fraud and abuse authorities, including under the AKS, to the requesting party's existing or proposed business arrangements. He was also responsible for leading OIG’s legal work related to waivers of certain fraud and abuse laws for purposes of testing new health care payment and service delivery models developed by CMS. He has led OIG’s negotiation of Corporate Integrity Agreements (CIAs), with a wide range of providers from across the health care industry. From 2012 to 2016, he served as the OIG signatory on behalf of HHS for all False Claims Act (including qui tam) settlements and CIAs nationwide. 

Prior to becoming AIG in 2012, Rob was the Chief of the Administrative and Civil Remedies Branch, the largest of three branches in the Office of Counsel.

In 2007, Rob served as a Special Trial Attorney in DOJ’s Fraud Section, Criminal Division, where he prosecuted matters in connection with phase one of the Medicare Fraud Strike Force in the Southern District of Florida. In that role, Rob was co-counsel for the jury trial leading to conviction on all five criminal counts, including soliciting and receiving kickbacks, of a durable medical equipment company owner who conspired with two Miami pharmacies in a scheme to bill Medicare for expensive inhalation medications. Prior to working at OIG, he worked in the general counsel’s office at a managed care organization.