Dr. Sonjay Fonn and Ms. Deborah Seeger of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and their professional companies, Midwest Neurosurgeons, LLC and DS Medical, LLC, have agreed to pay $825,000 to resolve a lawsuit alleging that they violated the False Claims Act by soliciting and receiving kickbacks from spinal implant companies.
The Justice Department’s lawsuit alleged that Dr. Fonn, Ms. Seeger, Midwest Neurosurgeons, and DS Medical solicited and received remuneration from spinal implant companies in return for arranging for the use of those companies’ products in Dr. Fonn’s surgeries, in violation of the Anti-Kickback Statute. The Anti‑Kickback Statute prohibits soliciting or receiving anything of value in return for the referral of items or services covered by federal health care programs. The statute is intended to ensure that medical providers’ judgments are not compromised by improper financial incentives.
“The Anti-Kickback Statute plays a critical role in ensuring the integrity of medical care provided to federal health care program beneficiaries,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian M. Boynton, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division. “Treatment decisions should be determined by beneficiaries’ medical needs, not by kickbacks provided to their surgeon.”
“This case took nearly a decade of hard work by my office, the whistleblowers, the Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services, the FBI and the Missouri Attorney General’s Office,” said U.S....
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