November 15, 2007
Stryker Corporation and its former outpatient therapy division, Physiotherapy Associates Inc., will pay $16.6 million to the federal government to settle allegations that Physiotherapy submitted false claims to Medicare and other federal health care programs,.
The suit, which was originally filed by two whistleblowers under the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act, alleged that Physiotherapy submitted claims that were falsely billed as one-on-one services and that Physiotherapy improperly retained excess or duplicate payments it received from federal health care programs.
The relators’ share of the recovery will be nearly $3 million, according to the November 14, 2007 U.S. Dept. of Justice press release.