King’s Daughters Medical Center (KDMC) has agreed to pay $40.9 million to settle allegations that the Kentucky hospital violated the False Claims Act by performing unnecessary medical procedures, falsifying patient records, and paying the doctors performing those procedures unreasonably high salaries. According to the allegations, doctors at KDMC implanted coronary stents and performed diagnostic catheterizations on patients that did not need those procedures. In order to justify the procedures, doctors at KDMC allegedly included false information in patient records. The government also alleged that the hospital violated the Stark law by paying cardiologists a salary that exceeded reasonable fair market value, thereby potentially clouding the judgment of those cardiologists. As part of the settlement agreement, KDMC entered into a corporate integrity agreement that includes oversight of the hospital’s claims for the next five years.

Read the entire press release, “King’s Daughters Medical Center to Pay Nearly $41 Million to Resolve Allegations of False Billing for Unnecessary Cardiac Procedures and Kickbacks”