DaVita Settles Another Lawsuit Amidst Accusations of "Managing Witnesses to Provide False Testimony," After Justice Department Lost Interest in Participating

The Latest Case Less than a year since its last big settlement (look here), DaVita HealthCare Partners, the big for-profit dialysis provider, has to settle again.  The basics, according to the Denver Post, were:DaVita HealthCare Partners said Monday it will pay up to $495 million to settle a whistle-blower lawsuit accusing the Denver company of defrauding the federal Medicare program of millions of dollars. The company, which said it does not admit any wrongdoing, has now settled its third whistle-blower lawsuit since 2012, with payouts totaling nearly $1 billion.The civil suit, filed in Atlanta in 2011, revolves around a claim by Dr. Alon J. Vainer and nurse Daniel D. Barbir, who both worked for DaVita. They noticed that DaVita was throwing out good medicine that it then billed Medicare and Medicaid for, according to the lawsuit.The details of the allegations about how the government was defrauded were:The lawsuit cited DaVita's inefficient use and costly waste of the drugs Zemplar, or vitamin D, and Venofer, an iron supplement. If a patient, for example, needed 25 milligrams of Venofer, the physician would use that much and toss the rest of the 100 mg vial. Medicare would be billed for the 100 mg.In other instances, if a patient needed 8 mg of Zemplar, DaVita doctors were instructed to a use a 10 mg vial, instead of four 2 mg vials.According to the lawsuit, the National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended against allowing ...
Source: Health Care Renewal - Category: Health Management Tags: DaVita fraud impunity legal settlements Source Type: blogs