DaVita, among the nation’s leading providers of kidney dialysis, is accused of intentionally wasting medicine in order to defraud Medicare of hundreds of millions of dollars. The whistleblower case was brought by a former nurse and doctor.

The allegations, denied by DaVita, state the company used greater than necessary doses of medication, disposing of leftovers and charging the excess to Medicare as “unavoidable waste.” DaVita allegedly required nurses to carry out these fraudulent practices up until January, when Medicare began a bundled system, paying for overall treatments rather than individual drugs.

After a two-year investigation, the federal government in April decided not to join the suit. DaVita claims that the prescribed doses reflected in some cases a desire to limit needle sticks in clinics. In other cases, small doses were supposedly better for the patient. Still, according to figures from a government-funded program that tracks dialysis, DaVita spent more per patient on iron drugs than any other competitor in 2008. DaVita also had the highest expenditures on vitamin D drugs and Epogen.

Read the entire article, “Suit Says Drugs Were Wasted to Buoy Profit”