The Department of Justice announced today that it settled a False Claims Act case against dialysis company DaVita Healthcare Partners:
DaVita Healthcare Partners, Inc., one of the leading providers of dialysis services in the United States, has agreed to pay $350 million to resolve claims that it violated the False Claims Act by paying kickbacks to induce the referral of patients to its dialysis clinics, the Justice Department announced today. DaVita is headquartered in Denver, Colorado and has dialysis clinics in 46 states and DC.
The settlement today resolves allegations that, between March 1, 2005 and February 1, 2014, DaVita identified physicians or physician groups that had significant patient populations suffering renal disease and offered them lucrative opportunities to partner with DaVita by acquiring and/or selling an interest in dialysis clinics to which their patients would be referred for dialysis treatment. DaVita further ensured referrals of these patients to the clinics through a series of secondary agreements with the physicians, including entering into agreements in which the physician agreed not to compete with the DaVita clinic and non-disparagement agreements that would have prevented the physicians from referring their patients to other dialysis providers.
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In addition to the False Claims Act settlement, DaVita will pay a civil forfeiture of $39 million and $11.5 million to resolve state FCA claims. The suit was filed by David Barbetta under the qui tam whistleblower law in 2009. Mr. Barbetta was formerly a Senior Financial Analyst in DaVita’s Mergers and Acquisitions Department.