ORTHOFIX PAYS $42 MILLION TO END WHISTLEBLOWER CASE

Orthofix International NV, maker of bone repair and sports medicine products has agreed to pay $42 million to resove a whistleblower lawsuit and six year criminal probe that it paid kickbacks to doctors who used its bone growth stimulators. The relator Jeffrey Bierman, owns a Missouri company providing billing services to doctors and hospital and he will receive $9.2 million in the civil settlement. Bierman originally sued in 2005 over the Medicare billings for bone-growth stimulators, which are used by patients who have back surgery. He said that Orthofix and others defrauded Medicare by submitting claims that patients needed to purchase the devices rather than rent them. The devices cost about $5,000 and are only needed for about six months to recover from surgery. Between 1998 and 2008 Medicare purchased more than 120,000 new stimulators and he vast majority sat idle in the homes of patients or have been thrown away. Bierman said that Orthofix staff miscoded documents ssent to federal regulators.