Three health technology companies agreed to pay a total of $13.45 million to resolve allegations they violated the False Claims Act and inflated Medicare billing for remote heart monitoring services.
Here are four things to know.
1. McKinney, Texas-based Spectocor and owner Joseph Bogdan allegedly marketed the company's Pocket ECG product for holter, event and telemetry services from 2011 to 2016. However, when physicians attempted to enroll patients in Pocket ECG monitoring, the process allegedly only allowed physicians to enroll for the service that provided the highest reimbursement based on a patient's insurance.
2. Plano, Texas-based Medi-Lynx began selling the Pocket ECG in 2013, allegedly under the same fraudulent enrollment procedure. Warsaw, Poland-based Medicalgorithmics acquired controlling interest in Medi-Lynx in 2016.
3. The lawsuit was filed under the qui tam — or whistleblower — provisions of the False Claims Act in a federal court in Newark, N.J., following allegations made by a former Spectocor sales manager. The whistleblower will receive roughly $2.4 million for his role in the settlements.
4. Spectocor and Mr. Bogdan agreed to pay $10.56 million. Medi-Lynx and Medicalgorithmics agreed to pay $2.89 million.
"Sophisticated medical technology can be used to help doctors dramatically improve the lives of their patients, but it can also be misused to fraudulently increase medical bills," said Acting U.S. Attorney William E. Fitzpatrick for the District of New Jersey. "Today's settlement demonstrates that the federal government is committed to preserving the integrity of the Medicare system and ensuring that Medicare funds are spent only for patient care."