April 3, 2018 - Posts
Whistleblower Roundup – April 3, 2018
A look back at the week’s news and developments affecting whistleblowers.
Takata Whistleblowers to Share $1.7 Million Award
Three former Takata Corporation employees will share an award of $1.7 million under the Motor Vehicle Safety Whistleblower Act for coming forward with knowledge that the automotive parts company fraudulently concealed knowledge of their defective airbag inflators. Takata’s airbag inflators can explode and eject metal shrapnel, a defect that has lead to at least 22 deaths and hundreds of injuries worldwide. Of the 50 million airbags that have been recalled, 21 million air bag inflators have been repaired according to NHTSA. You can read the full story here.
Alere to Pay Over $33 Million for Medical Device Fraud
The Department of Justice announced that medical device manufacturer Alere Inc. and its subsidiary Alere San Diego (Alere) have agreed to pay $33 million to settle False Claims Act allegations against them. The lawsuit alleges that Alere sold their Triage® rapid point-of-care testing devices, despite being aware of their erroneous results. The tests’ false negatives and positives caused the hospitals to submit false claims to federal healthcare programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. The whistleblower who filed the lawsuit was a former senior quality control analyst at Alere, and will receive approximately $5.6 million of the settlement for coming forward.
Iowa Hospital to Pay $1.88 Million to Resolve False Claims Act Allegations Relating to Improper Inpatient Admission Claims
Davenport, Iowa-based acute care hospital Genesis Medical Center has agreed to pay $1.88 to settle a False Claims Act lawsuit, the Department of Justice announced. The settlement will resolve allegations that Genesis violated the False Claims Act by “improperly retaining Medicare overpayments for hospital inpatient admission claims when those claims should have been billed at the lower reimbursement rate for either outpatient or observation services.”
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