Definition
LEIE has two distinct meanings that share nothing but their spelling: one is a historical Anglo-Norman legal term, the other a modern federal administrative acronym central to healthcare compliance.
1. (Historical) An archaic Anglo-Norman French (Law French) spelling variant of ley, meaning law. Found in early English legal manuscripts and Year Books, it carries the same meaning as the more familiar ley — the body of law, or in certain contexts, the wager of law (compurgation). The term has no independent legal significance today and appears only in historical sources.
2. (Modern, Federal) The List of Excluded Individuals and Entities. A database maintained by the Office of Inspector General (OIG) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) identifying individuals and entities excluded from participation in Medicare, Medicaid, and all other federal healthcare programs. Exclusion may be mandatory (triggered automatically by certain criminal convictions) or permissive (discretionary based on a range of conduct). Entities that employ or contract with an LEIE-listed person or organization face significant civil monetary penalties.
Common Confusion
The acronym LEIE is used almost exclusively in the federal healthcare compliance context. Researchers encountering the term in modern legal documents, compliance manuals, or administrative proceedings should default to the OIG database meaning. Researchers working in medieval English legal history will encounter the term as a Law French spelling variant only; that usage has no connection to healthcare law whatsoever. Do not conflate the two.
A separate but related source of confusion: the LEIE is sometimes conflated with the SAM.gov (System for Award Management) exclusions list maintained by the General Services Administration, which operates under different statutory authority and covers federal contracting broadly. The two lists overlap but are not identical. Compliance with one does not guarantee compliance with the other.
Core Elements
For the modern LEIE (OIG exclusion database), the key operational features are:
1. Mandatory Exclusion: Required by statute for individuals convicted of program-related crimes, patient abuse or neglect, felony convictions relating to controlled substances, and felony convictions relating to healthcare fraud. Minimum exclusion period is five years.
2. Permissive Exclusion: Discretionary OIG action based on a broader range of conduct including misdemeanor convictions, license revocations, default on Health Education Assistance Loans, and excessive claims or unnecessary services. Minimum periods vary.
3. Billing Prohibition: Excluded parties may not bill federal healthcare programs directly or indirectly. No payment may be made for items or services furnished by an excluded individual, ordered or prescribed by an excluded individual, or provided by an entity that employs or contracts with an excluded individual.
4. Civil Monetary Penalties: Entities that employ or contract with excluded individuals may face penalties up to $10,000 per item or service plus three times the amount billed, under the Civil Monetary Penalties Law.
5. Reinstatement: Exclusion is not permanent by default. Excluded parties may apply for reinstatement after the exclusion period expires; reinstatement is not automatic.
Why It Matters in Research
The modern LEIE meaning dominates contemporary legal research. Healthcare lawyers, compliance officers, and administrative law practitioners encounter it constantly. The critical research trap is currency: the LEIE database is updated monthly, and a search result from even a few weeks prior may be stale. Legal research into exclusion must account for the date of the search.
For historical legal research, the Law French variant ley/leie presents a different trap: Burrill's entry is minimal, and the term's significance lies entirely in its role within the broader framework of compurgation and wager of law. Researchers working in pre-modern English legal history who encounter leie in a manuscript should look immediately to the surrounding procedural context — whether the term appears in connection with a wager of law proceeding or as a general reference to law.
The historical and modern meanings will never appear in the same research context, but researchers should be alert to which register they are working in before interpreting the term.
Jurisdictional note: federal exclusion programs under the LEIE cover all federal healthcare programs nationally, but states maintain separate Medicaid exclusion databases that may list additional individuals not on the federal LEIE. A person excluded by a state may not appear on the federal list, and vice versa. Healthcare compliance research requires checking both.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the only historical dictionary treatment identified in the Law Mind corpus: Burrill records leie as an "old form of ley," citing Kelham's Dictionary of the Norman French Language. This entry is as sparse as it could be — essentially a spelling note. Kelham's treatment of ley and its variants provides the substantive context Burrill omits.
No other shelf dictionaries in the Law Mind corpus appear to give independent treatment to leie as distinct from ley. Researchers relying on historical legal dictionaries for this term will need to pursue ley entries rather than leie entries for meaningful doctrinal content.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Law Mind Encyclopedia: Federal Healthcare Exclusions and the OIG Exclusion Program
Law Mind Encyclopedia: Wager of Law (for the historical Law French sense)
Law Mind Encyclopedia: Civil Monetary Penalties in Federal Healthcare Law