18 U.S.C. § 1518
Section 1518 · Obstruction of criminal investigations of health care offenses
This is § 245 of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996
Amended 1 time on record
Applied in 24 court decisions — leading case United States v. Simpson (1991)
Most recently applied in Pugin v. Garland (June 2023)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
(a) Whoever willfully prevents, obstructs, misleads, delays or attempts to prevent, obstruct, mislead, or delay the communication of information or records relating to a violation of a Federal health care offense to a criminal investigator shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both.
(b) As used in this section the term “criminal investigator” means any individual duly authorized by a department, agency, or armed force of the United States to conduct or engage in investigations for prosecutions for violations of health care offenses.