Two medical device giants have been accused of promoting off-label use of their products and cheating the Medicare system in a federal lawsuit stemming from a qui tam accusation.

AtriCure Inc., St. Jude Medical Inc. and subsidiary Epicor Medical Inc. and Endoscopic Technologies are accused of offering illegal kickbacks to hospitals and doctors who use their equipment to perform microwave cardiac ablation procedures.  The suit alleges they, “initiated a scheme to encourage hospitals to improperly bill Medicare for the procedures and to ‘upcode’ their bills to get even more out of the federal health program.”

The whistleblower, who requested her personal information be removed from court documents, worked for Boston Scientific as a sales rep. The scheme allegedly called for sales reps to use codes for more expensive procedures in order to receive a larger sum from Medicare.

Click here to read the full article “Boston Scientific, Medtronic, five others slapped with off-label lawsuits”