GE Pays $30 Million to Settle Medicare Case

(CN) - GE Healthcare will pay $30 million to settle allegations that Amersham Health, which GE acquired in 2004, violated the False Claims Act by causing Medicare to overpay for Myoview, a radiopharmaceutical used in cardiac diagnostic imaging procedures, the Justice Department said.

Myoview is distributed in multi-dose vials of powder that are mixed at nuclear pharmacies with a radioactive agent to prepare doses to be injected into patients for cardiac imaging procedures. Certain Medicare payment rates for Myoview were based, in part, on the number of doses available from vials of Myoview.

Prosecutors said Amersham Health provided false or misleading information to Medicare regarding the number of doses available from vials, causing Medicare to pay inflated rates.

The whistleblower, James Wagel, will receive $5.1 million under qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act.

The Justice Department said it has collected more than $6.6 billion in False Claims Act cases involving fraud in federal health care programs since 2009.

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