The Department of Justice (DOJ) fined BioTelemetry Inc., and its subsidiary CardioNet LLC, nearly $45 million for violating the False Claims Act. The federal government claims Cardionet illegally outsourced cardiac analyses to India and to analysts without the required Cardiovascular Credentialing International (CCI) certification.
Per this week’s statement, claims made to Medicare, TRICARE, the Veterans Health Administration, and the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program can only be for services provided by American workers. However, BioTelemetry routed, by 2014, over 29% of their electrocardiogram data reviewed in connection with mobile cardiovascular telemetry and over 78% of the similar data but reviewed in connection with event monitoring tests to subcontractors in India. In 2015, they routed even more of these workloads to said Indian subcontractors.
The statement describes that in the following years, BioTelemetry began implementing controls to prevent the data of beneficiaries of the above programs ending up with said Indian subcontractors, but the DOJ found those measures insufficient.
Additionally, the DOJ alleges that only 3% of the Indian analysts were certified by the CCI, the only recognized credentialing body for such technicians.
This case came to the DOJ’s attention through a qui tam suit brought by Christopher Strasinski and Philip Leone, former CardioNet employees. They will receive a bounty of approximately $8.3 million as part of this settlement.
Attorneys Amy Kossak and Jessica Sievert of the Civil Division and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Eric Gill and Erin Lindgren for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania prosecuted the case.
