Doctors Took Kickbacks to Implant Pacemakers

This week's DOJ settlement with Medtronic confirms some of people's worst fears about both doctors and medical device companies. As the Justice Department reports:

The United States contends 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. . . . . 

“Patients who rely on their healthcare providers to implant vital medical devices expect that those decisions will be made with the patients’ best interests in mind,” said Tony West, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division. “Kickbacks, like those alleged here, distort sound medical judgments with financial incentives paid for by the taxpayers.”

“Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries depend on their physicians to make decisions based on sound medical judgment, especially when they are choosing which pacemaker or defibrillator to implant,” said B. Todd Jones, U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota.  “Medical device manufacturers must not be permitted to use improper payments to cloud that judgment.”

“Today’s settlement highlights one of the key purposes of the Anti-Kickback law – to ensure that the judgment exercised by health care providers in treating Medicare and Medicaid patients is not influenced by unlawful payments,” said Benjamin Wagner, U.S. Attorney for Eastern District of California.                       

“Patients trust that decisions to implant certain pacemakers or other medical devices are based on their own health interests and not influenced by kickbacks,” said Daniel R. Levinson, Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services. “Companies distorting medical decision-making through kickbacks can expect that OIG investigators and our law enforcement partners will actively investigate and prosecute such unlawful conduct.”