Here are 8 lawsuits involving kickback allegations cases since July 17 as reported by Becker's:
1. The Department of Justice filed a legal complaint against Erlanger Health System July 26. The complaint alleges that the system employed physicians at Erlanger Western Carolina Hospital in Murphy, N.C., and Chattanooga-Hamilton County (Tenn.) Hospital Authority that did not meet Stark law exceptions, amounting to a kickback scheme.
2. The owner of a medical supply company in Spokane, Wash., will pay over $200,000 to resolve allegations that he participated in a kickback scheme to bill Medicare for unnecessary durable medical equipment.
3. A physician in Olympia, Wash., was sentenced to two years in federal prison for accepting kickbacks through a false medical supply scheme amounting to over $14.6 million. He will pay $839,566 in restitution and a $50,000 fine.
4. A Lexington, Ky., physician was sentenced to two years in prison and was stripped of his license for his involvement in a $14 million kickback scheme.
5. Bloomington-Minn.-based Precision Lens, a seller of eye surgery products and its former majority owner, the estate of Paul Ehlen, will pay $12 million to settle allegations of kickbacks to ophthalmic surgeons.
6. Burlington County (N.J) Eye Physicians and its physician owner, Gregory Scimeca, MD, will pay $469,232 to settle false claims allegations and receiving kickbacks.
7. Kindred at Home, succeeded by Gentiva, agreed to pay $19.43 million to resolve allegations that the hospice group falsely submitted claims and retained overpayments who were ineligible to receive Medicaid or Medicare hospice benefits.
8. DaVita agreed to pay $35.5 million to settle allegations that it paid physicians and specialists, as well as a competitor, to induce referrals and receive illegal kickbacks.