January 27, 2020

Practice Fusion, Inc., a provider of electronic health records systems, will pay $145 million to resolve criminal and civil charges that it accepted unlawful kickbacks from pharmaceutical companies and misrepresented the capabilities of its EHR software.  As part of the settlement, the defendant entered into a deferred prosecution agreement, paying $26 million in criminal fines and forfeitures, agreeing to compliance policies and monitoring, and admitting that it accepted payment from an unnamed opioid manufacturer in exchange for including “clinical decision support” alerts within its EHR system that were designed to increase prescriptions for the pharma company’s drugs.  The civil settlement – $119 million for the federal government and up to an additional $5.2 million for states that choose to opt in – resolves the kickback allegations related to the opioid manufacturer and 13 other such arrangements, as well as allegations that Practice Fusion knowingly misrepresented the capabilities of its EHR system in order to secure federal certification for the software and secure eligibility for federal incentive payments for providers adopting its software.  DOJ; USAO VT

Tagged in: Anti-Kickback and Stark, Criminal Proceedings, Electronic Health Records, FCA Federal, Healthcare Fraud, Pharma Fraud,