A diagnostic testing facility has agreed to pay $13.45 million to end a Medicare fraud lawsuit over allegations of billing for medically unnecessary services.

The two testing facilities involved in the Medicare fraud lawsuit is AMI Monitoring Inc., also known as Spectocor, and Medi-Lynx Cardiac Monitoring LLC. The diagnostic lab facilities are set to pay $10.56 million and $2.89 million, respectively.

Though this settlement brings an end to the Medicare fraud lawsuit, it does so without determining whether or not these organizations are liable for the claims brought against them.

According to the Medicare fraud lawsuit, these diagnostic labs persuaded doctors to bill Medicare for more expensive cardiac services than were actually medically necessary.

While advanced medical services are important, companies can sometimes use them when unnecessary in order to increase what they charge Medicare.

Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, William E. Fitzpatrick, said about the settlement: “Sophisticated medical technology can be used to help doctors dramatically improve the lives of their patients, but it can also be misused to fraudulently increase medical bills.”

The Medicare fraud lawsuit was filed back in 2014 by a whistleblower. Eben S., a former employee of the diagnostic lab Spectocor, alleged in his whistleblower lawsuit that the company use an online enrollment portal that influenced doctors to choose a monitoring service that had the highest reimbursement rate for their Medicare patients, even when patients would have preferred a more affordable monitoring service option.

The whistleblower’s attorney, Suzanne D., referred to this as “electronic sleight of hand,” tricking doctors into ordering unnecessarily expensive monitoring. Medi-Lynx Cardiac Monitoring, along with Spectocor, was found by the Justice Department to use the same online enrollment system that led to doctors making similar false claims.

Of the $13.45 million settlement, the whistleblower will receive $2.43 million for his part in bringing the matter forward.

Filing a Whistleblower Medicare Fraud Lawsuit

Whistleblowers are individuals who report the fraud and illegal activities against the government of their current or former employers. Many employees choose to come forward as whistleblowers because they do not feel right about their employer’s actions. A whistleblower lawsuit can be filed while working at the company, but can also be filed after having left the company.

While a person considering becoming a whistleblower may be worried that they will face retaliation for their actions, there are regulations in place to protect whistleblowers from such retaliation.

Plus, the whistleblower in a successful case is typically given a substantial reward—often between 15 and 30 percent of the money recovered in the subsequent whistleblower lawsuit. In this Medicare fraud lawsuit, the whistleblower was given $2.43 of the $13.45 million total settlement money, or around 18 percent.

If you believe you have witnessed some kind of fraud by your current or former employer, you may be able to file a whistleblower lawsuit (also known as a qui tam lawsuit) against your employer on behalf of the government.