An unsealed whistleblower lawsuit alleges that sales representatives from medical equipment company Medtronic operated a yearslong bribery scheme inside of a veteran's hospital in Kansas, according to a July 12 report from CNBC.
For nearly a decade, Medtronic representatives "bribed hospital staff to purchase its devices over those of competitors and to purchase grossly excessive inventory," according to the suit, costing taxpayers millions of dollars.
The lawsuit was originally filed in 2017, but the case became public at the end of 2022 when the government chose not to intervene.
The Robert J. Dole Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Wichita, Kan., launched its own internal investigation in 2018 when its new medical director noticed that the department performing peripheral artery disease treatments with atherectomy devices was spending an excessive amount of money.
Medtronic manufactures these atherectomy devices, and while one to two devices are used in a typical procedure on average, evidence shows that in one case, surgeons deployed 17 devices while a Medtronic sales representative was in the operating room.
According to the medical director's deposition, costs were about $5 million more a year than they should have been in the artery disease department alone.
Since 2011, Medtronic and its subsidiaries have paid over $60 million in settlements related to kickback and fraud scheme allegations.
Medtronic filed to have the case dismissed in 2022, but a judge ruled that it could continue.