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Anti-Kickback and Stark

This archive displays posts tagged as relevant to the Anti-Kickback Statute and Stark Law.

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Page 1 of 30

When a Gift is Not a Gift: Pharma Companies Use Charities to Increase Drug Profits

Posted  12/13/18
Imagine if at the end of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” Ebenezer Scrooge announced that he was giving the prize turkey to the Cratchit family for Christmas dinner, but that this “gift” was conditional upon Bob Cratchit agreeing to work even longer hours in the new year, the turkey being cooked in a certain way, and only certain family members eating it. Would we consider Scrooge to have been truly...

Tagged in: Anti-Kickback and Stark, FCA Federal, Pharma Fraud,

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December 11, 2018

A New York-based audiology practice has agreed to pay $566,263.08 in connection with alleged violations of the False Claims Act and Anti-Kickback Statute. According to an unnamed whistleblower, Oviatt Hearing and Balance, LLC improperly billed Medicare and TRICARE for services rendered by unlicensed and unsupervised employees, as well as provided inappropriate inducements in the form of free iPads, Butterball turkeys, and gift cards, to Medicare and TRICARE beneficiaries to get them to choose Oviatt over other providers. For their role in exposing the fraud, the whistleblower stands to receive a relator's share of $120,000. USAO NDNY

Tagged in: Anti-Kickback and Stark, FCA Federal, Healthcare Fraud, Improper Medical Personnel, Medicare, Other Government Health Programs, Whistleblower Case, Whistleblower Rewards,

December 11, 2018

Aurora Health Care, Inc. has agreed to pay $12 million to settle allegations of defrauding Medicare and Wisconsin's Medicaid program in certain reimbursement claims filed between 2008 to 2012. According to the United States and State of Wisconsin, the healthcare provider and two physicians entered into improper financial relationships in violation of the federal and state False Claims Acts as well as the Stark Law. As a result, some of the claims that Aurora submitted to the government health programs were improper. Despite alerting the government to the illegal arrangement, a qui tam complaint filed by unnamed whistleblowers alleged different claims. Although the whistleblowers will still receive a share of the recovery, the government did not intervene in their lawsuit, which will be dismissed as part of the settlement. USAO EDWI

Tagged in: Anti-Kickback and Stark, FCA Federal, FCA State, Healthcare Fraud, Medicaid, Medicare, Whistleblower Case,

Catch of the Week — Actelion Pharmaceticals

Posted  12/7/18
This week's Department of Justice "Catch of the Week" goes to Actelion Pharmaceuticals US, Inc., a California pharmaceutical company that sells various pulmonary arterial hypertension drugs, including Tracleer, Ventavis, Veletri, and Opsumit. Yesterday, Actelion agreed to pay $360 million to resolve allegations that it violated the Anti-Kickback Statute by indirectly paying drug copays for thousands of Medicare patients. It did so by donating to a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, which in...

Tagged in: Anti-Kickback and Stark, Catch of the Week, Healthcare Fraud, Pharma Fraud,

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December 6, 2018

Actelion Pharmaceuticals US, Inc., will pay $360 million to settle claims that it violated the False Claims Act by means of illegally using a foundation as a channel through which it paid the copays of thousands of Medicare patients who were taking Actelion’s pulmonary arterial hypertension drugs to induce patients to purchase the medications. Actelion collected data from the foundation on its spending for patients and used this information to calculate its donations to the foundation, ensuring that its contributions were adequate to cover the copays of patients taking the subject drugs. The company continued these practices despite allegedly receiving warnings from the foundation.   DOJ  

Tagged in: Anti-Kickback and Stark, Drug and DME Pricing, FCA Federal, Pharma Fraud,

December 4, 2018

In connection with fraud involving two medical devices, Covidien and ev3 Inc. have agreed to pay a total of $31 million to resolve allegations of violating the False Claims Act. According to whistleblower and former employee of Covidien, Jeffrey Faatz, sister company ev3 Inc.'s Onyx Liquid Embolic System was only FDA approved for use within the brain, but was allegedly being marketed to surgeons for use outside the brain. Furthermore, ev3 reportedly incentivized its sales representatives to sell the device for unapproved purposes by setting up sales quotas and bonuses, and did so even as FDA officials expressed safety concerns to the company's executives. Separately, Covidien was accused of paying kickbacks to hospitals to induce use of its Solitaire mechanical thrombectomy device, causing false claims to be submitted to Medicare and Medicaid. For blowing the whistle on this case, Faatz will receive a relator's share of $2 million. DOJ; USAO CDCA; USAO SDFL; USAO MA

Tagged in: Anti-Kickback and Stark, FCA Federal, Medical Devices and DME, Off-Label and Unapproved Use, Whistleblower Case, Whistleblower Rewards,

December 4, 2018

Medical device-maker LivaNova USA, Inc. has agreed to pay $1.87 million to resolve claims that it paid improper kickbacks to physicians who were among the largest referrers of patients for LivaNova's implanted epilepsy device.  The payments took the form of "speaking fees" for the doctors, although the doctors who received them were primarily speaking to their own staffs.  Ashley Case, a former employee of LivaNova, initiated the investigation by filing a case under the False Claims Act; she will receive an unspecified share of the settlement.  USAO NDGA

Tagged in: Anti-Kickback and Stark, FCA Federal, FCA State, Medical Devices and DME, Whistleblower Case, Whistleblower Rewards,

November 28, 2018

Dr. Thomas Baker, Dr. Carolyn Kochert, Dr. Larry L. Zhou, and Dr. Julie Y. Chao, have agreed to settle with the United States Government for violation of the Federal False Claims Act, the Physician Self-Referral law (“Stark”), and the Anti-Kickback Statute due to their involvement in a kickback scheme with Southwest Laboratories and Medscan Laboratory, thus causing false claims to be submitted to Medicare. The four physicians will pay a total amount of over $1.5 million. The individual amounts paid are as follows: Dr. Baker, of Tennessee - $484,481.80; Dr. Kochert, of Indiana - $129,682.84; Dr. Zhou, of Kentucky - $277,758.18; Dr. Chao, of Indiana - $650,000. DOJ

Tagged in: Anti-Kickback and Stark, FCA Federal, Healthcare Fraud, Laboratory and IDTF, Medicare, Provider Fraud,

November 20, 2018

Gray Wesley Barrow, a doctor and co-owner of Louisiana Spine & Sports LLC, a pain management clinic in Baton Rouge, has pleaded guilty to receiving approximately $336,000 in unlawful kickbacks.  According to the plea, between 2014 and 2016 Barrow sent urine specimens collected from his patients to a drug testing laboratory that agreed to pay him a percentage of the reimbursements paid to the laboratory by health care benefit programs including Medicare. DOJ; USAO M.D. La.

Tagged in: Anti-Kickback and Stark, Healthcare Fraud, Laboratory and IDTF, Provider Fraud,

November 14, 2018

After pleading guilty last year, the owner of two health clinics in Detroit has been sentenced to 160 months in prison and ordered to pay over $6 million for defrauding Medicare. Along with multiple co-defendants, Jacklyn Price allegedly took part in a scheme to bill Medicare for services that were obtained through kickbacks, not medically necessary, not actually provided, or provided by an unlicensed practitioner. Her co-defendants, Millicent Traylor, Muhammad Qazi, and Christina Kimbrough, were all sentenced in September. DOJ

Tagged in: Anti-Kickback and Stark, Healthcare Fraud, Lack of Medical Necessity, Medical Billing Fraud, Medicare,

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