St. Jude Medical

A settlement has been reached in a whistleblower class action lawsuit brought against St. Jude Medical Inc, Parma Community General Hospital, and Norton Healthcare. They are accused of violating the False Claims Act in relation to certain illegal kickbacks to secure heart-device business.

Under the terms of the settlement, St. Jude, headquartered in St. Paul, Minn., will pay $3,725,000. Parma Community General Hospital, located in Parma, Ohio, will pay $40,000, and Norton Healthcare in Louisville, Ky., will pay $133,300. The government asserted that Parma and Norton were recipients of improper rebates from St. Jude.  The reward for the whistleblower will be $640,050.

The whistleblower case was originally filed in 2006. The United States alleged that St. Jude paid illegal kickbacks to two hospitals to secure heart-device business and that these kickbacks caused false claims to be submitted to federal health care programs in violation of the False Claims Act. The kickbacks included alleged rebates that were "retroactive" and paid based on a hospital’s previous purchases of St. Jude heart-device equipment and rebates that St. Jude paid for purchases of heart-device equipment sold by its competitors to induce purchases of similar equipment from St. Jude in the future.

A settlement has been reached in a whistleblower class action lawsuit brought against St. Jude Medical Inc of St. Paul, MN who is accused of paying kickbacks to induce physicians to implant the company’s pacemakers and defibrillators.

The whistleblower will recover a $2.64 million share of the government's settlement.

Originally filed in July 2006, the United States allged that St. Jude used three post-market studies and a device registry as vehicles to pay participating physicians kickbacks to induce them to implant St. Jude pacemakers and defibrillators. Although St. Jude collected data and information from participating physicians, it is alleged that the company knowingly and intentionally used the studies and registry as a means of increasing its device sales by paying certain physicians to select St. Jude pacemakers and implantable cardioverter defibrillator for their patients. In each case, St. Jude paid each participating physician a fee that ranged up to $2,000 per patient. The United States alleged that St. Jude solicited physicians for the studies in order to retain their business and/or convert their business from a competitor’s product.