Thursday, November 15, 2007

Kudos to a Couple of Pharmaceutical Whistleblowers!

Two private citizens, employees of Physiotherapy Associates, Inc., will receive almost $3 million dollars for blowing the whistle on Physiotherapy and Kalamazoo, Mich. based Stryker Corporation. (Physiotherapy is the former outpatient therapy division of Stryker.)

Stryker and Physiotherapy will pay the United States a $16.6 million settlement to resolve allegations that Memphis based Physiotherapy submitted false claims for services to Medicare, Tennessee Medicaid programs, and the DoD's TRICARE program which they falsely billed as one-on-one services and which they additionally double-billed for.

The Physiotherapy whistleblowers, Kerry Deering and Wendy Whitcomb, filed two successful qui tam suits. Under the whistleblower provisions of the False Claims Act, the whistleblowers receive a portion of the proceeds of a settlement or judgement awarded against a defendant.

Chalk one up for a couple of Good Guys!

Read more here.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It is very heartening to hear that there are people who work for these drug companies that have the guts and the integrity to blow the whistle on them. They deserve every cent they win in the settlements. Now if only the settlements were big enough to faze the Pharma companies coffers.