Ross Feller Casey Medical Device Whistleblower Lawsuit Leads To $45 Million Settlement

A Malvern, Pa. medical device company has agreed to pay nearly $45 million to settle claims it defrauded U.S. taxpayers by outsourcing vital remote medical services to workers in India who were not properly trained.

The allegations against BioTelemetry, Inc., now a Royal Philips company, were brought to light through a whistleblower lawsuit filed by Ross Feller Casey, LLP, of Philadelphia, on behalf of former company employees.

The case centered around allegations that the company improperly billed Medicare and other federal programs for remote heart monitoring services between 2013 and 2022, according to Ross Feller Casey’s Brian J. McCormick, Jr., a top national whistleblower attorney.

Remote heart monitoring allows information from a patient’s monitoring device to transmit around the clock to technicians and provides doctors with early indications of trouble.

The company was supposed to perform those critical services in the U.S. However, it allegedly hired technicians in India instead. The company also faced allegations that the technicians in India were not certified to perform the monitoring, as required by federal law. Fewer than 3 percent of the technicians who monitored data of U.S. Medicare patients were properly certified, according to the settlement.

BioTelemetry was formerly known as CardioNet, LLC, and based in Conshohocken, Pa. BioTelemetry became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Philips in 2021.

Ross Feller Casey, which has a long and distinguished record of winning major whistleblower cases, filed the qui tam lawsuit in federal court in Philadelphia in 2018. For four years, the U.S. government investigated the claims and then joined the case, alleging the company violated the federal False Claims Act. Under the False Claims Act, citizens such as these whistleblowers can report fraud involving federal programs and earn a reward for their reporting. The whistleblowers in this case will split $8.3 million.

“This case is a testament to the powerful public interest served by a collaboration between government enforcement agencies and dedicated private citizens,” said McCormick, who complimented Eric Gill and Erin Lindgren of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Philadelphia, and former AUSA John Crutchlow, for their outstanding work on the case. “The government protected medical patients who deserve their care to be performed by properly credentialed and experienced providers, and the False Claims Act worked as designed by returning much-needed taxpayer dollars to the U.S. Treasury.”

The settlement drew widespread media attention, including in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

The Legal Intelligencer newspaper also covered the news.

If you have information about fraud involving federal funds or against a state or local government, you should contact a top whistleblower lawyer at Ross Feller Casey now. We understand the personal and professional risks you are taking to blow the whistle on fraud and will protect your rights through the entire legal process.

As with all of its cases, Ross Feller Casey handles whistleblower actions on a contingency basis, meaning there will never be a cost to you unless there is a financial recovery in your case.