Cardiac Monitoring Companies, Executive To Pay $13.4 Million To Resolve False Claims Act Allegations

https://www.justice.gov/usao-nj/pr/cardiac-monitoring-companies-and-executive-agree-pay-134-million-resolve-false-claims-act

Department of Justice
U.S. Attorney’s Office
District of New Jersey

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, June 26, 2017

Cardiac Monitoring Companies And Executive Agree To Pay $13.4 Million To Resolve False Claims Act Allegations

NEWARK, N.J. – Four companies and one executive have agreed to pay more than $13.4 million, including interest, to resolve allegations that they billed Medicare for higher and more expensive levels of cardiac monitoring services than had been ordered by doctors, Acting U.S. Attorney William E. Fitzpatrick and Acting Assistant Attorney General Chad A. Readler of the Justice Department’s Civil Division announced today.

AMI Monitoring Inc. and its affiliate, Spectocor LLC, both based in McKinney, Texas, agreed to pay $9.56 million, plus interest. Joseph H. Bogdan, 55, of Fairview, Texas, president and owner of the companies, has agreed to pay $1 million plus interest. Medi-Lynx Cardiac Monitoring LLC, headquartered in Plano, Texas, and its majority owner, MEDICALgorithmics S.A., a biotechnology company based in Warsaw, Poland, have agreed to pay $2.89 million.
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From 2011 through 2016, AMI and Spectocor marketed the PocketECG cardiac monitoring device under an exclusive distribution agreement with MEDICALgorithmics, the device’s manufacturer. AMI and Spectocor, both independent diagnostic testing facilities, marketed the device to doctors as being capable of performing three different types of cardiac monitoring services: Holter, event, or telemetry. The companies and Mr. Bogdan, however, knowingly designed the device’s online enrollment process to steer unwitting doctors to select “telemetry” – which provided the highest rate of reimbursement – for all Medicare patients, even when they wanted to select one of the less expensive services. This marketing, promotion, and enrollment process resulted in the submission of false claims to Medicare.

In 2013, a former co-owner of Spectocor and AMI formed Medi-Lynx as an independent diagnostic testing facility that also marketed the PocketECG device under an agreement with MEDICALgorithmics. From 2013 through 2016, Medi-Lynx also employed the same device enrollment procedure and marketing scheme, resulting in the submission of false Medicare claims. In addition to manufacturing the PocketECG, MEDICALgorithmics acquired a controlling interest in Medi-Lynx in September 2016.

The allegations were raised in a lawsuit filed under the qui tam, or whistleblower, provisions of the False Claims Act, which allows private citizens with knowledge of fraud to bring civil actions on behalf of the government and to share in any recovery. The whistleblower – a former AMI employee who brought the misconduct to the government’s attention – will receive $2.4 million of the $13.4 million that the government recovered.
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