A settlement has been reached in a whistleblower class action lawsuit brought against Medtronic Inc who is accused of using physician payments related to post-market studies and device registries as kickbacks to induce doctors to implant the company’s pacemakers and defibrillators.
The settlement resolves allegations contained in two whistleblower lawsuits. The whistleblowers will receive payments totaling more than $3.96 million from the federal share of the recovery.
The United States alleged that Medtronic caused false claims to be submitted to Medicare and Medicaid by using two post-market studies and two device registries as vehicles to pay participating physicians illegal kickbacks to induce them to implant Medtronic pacemakers and defibrillators. Although Medtronic collected data and information from participating physicians, each of the studies and registries required a new or previous implant of a Medtronic device in each patient, and in each case Medtronic paid participating physicians a fee ranging from approximately $1,000 to $2,000 per patient. The United States contends that Medtronic solicited physicians for the studies and registries in order to convert their business from a competitor’s product and/or persuade the physicians to continue using Medtronic products.
