The law firms of Frank Haron Weiner PLC in Troy, MI and Vezina & Gattuso, LLC in Gretna, LA, in conjunction with the United States Department of Justice, today announced a settlement of $30,000,000 with GE Healthcare, a global provider of medical technologies and pharmaceuticals.

The settlement is the result of a 2006 lawsuit filed in the Eastern District of Michigan federal court by Michigan resident James Wagel under the qui tam provisions of the federal False Claims Act.  The False Claims Act allows private individuals with knowledge of fraud against the federal government to file lawsuits on the government’s behalf.  If the case is successful, the private plaintiffs, known as “relators”, are entitled to a percentage of the monies recovered by the government.

Mr. Wagel’s complaint alleged that Amersham Biosciences, a division of GE Healthcare, knowingly provided false or misleading information to the federal Medicare program from 2000 to 2003 in connection with the distribution of the radiopharmaceutical agent Myoview, a drug used by health care providers in the cardiology field to perform nuclear stress tests.  This conduct caused the Medicare program to reimburse Myoview at artificially inflated rates.  The complaint further alleged that Amersham Biosciences orchestrated a scheme under which Myoview was improperly diluted in order to maximize the number of doses available per vial, thus leading to an increased number of patient-ready doses and inflated Medicare reimbursements.         

“Medicare reimbursement operates largely on the honor system,” said Monica P. Navarro, who represented Mr. Wagel.  “Truthful reporting by entities dealing with Medicare is essential to its integrity. In this case, we believe the company systematically gamed its reporting at the expense of both the patients who received diluted Myoview and the taxpayers who shouldered the burden of this fraud.  The False Claims Act was the right tool to stop this abuse, as it took a courageous private citizen to come forward and expose this exploitation of Medicare.”

Under the terms of the Settlement Agreement with GE Healthcare, Mr. Wagel will receive $5,100,000 as his relator’s share. Pursuant to the False Claims Act, the Defendants will also pay costs and attorneys’ fees.

Monica P. Navarro, special counsel to Frank Haron Weiner, and J. Marc Vezina from Vezina & Gattuso represented Mr. Wagel. The case was handled by Jeffrey A. Toll from the U.S. Department of Justice, Carolyn Bell-Harbin with the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan, and Gregory E. Demske from the Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General.