Manufacturer of Spinal Devices and Surgeon to Pay United States $2.6 Million to Settle Alleged Kickback Scheme | WPN World People News

Omni Surgical L.P., doing business as Spine 360, a manufacturer of devices used in spinal surgery, and Dr. Jamie Gottlieb, an Indiana spinal surgeon, have agreed to pay $2.6 million to the United States to settle allegations that Spine 360 paid illegal kickbacks to Gottlieb to induce him to use the company’s products. Spine 360 is based in Austin, Texas.

“The Department of Justice has longstanding concerns about improper financial relationships between health care providers and their referral sources, because such relationships can alter a physician’s judgment about the patient's true health care needs and drive up health care costs for everybody,” said Assistant Attorney General Stuart F. Delery for the Justice Department’s Civil Division. “In addition to yielding a recovery for taxpayers, this settlement should deter similar conduct in the future and help make health care more affordable.”

The Anti-Kickback Statute restricts the financial relationships that medical device manufacturers may have with doctors who use or prescribe their products. It is intended to ensure that a physician’s medical judgment is not compromised by improper financial incentives and is instead based upon the best interests of the patient.

The settlement announced involved payments that Spine 360 made between 2007 and 2009 to an entity controlled by Gottlieb. Although the payments were purportedly made pursuant to a series of intellectual property agreements, the United States contended that those agreements were shams, and that the payments were intended to compensate Gottlieb for using Spine 360 products in his surgeries.

Source: U.S. Department of Justice