The Justice Department on April 11 filed a complaint in intervention alleging Memphis-based Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare violated the False Claims Act and the Anti-Kickback Statute.
The Justice Department intervened in the whistleblower lawsuit, which was filed in 2017 by the former president of Methodist University Hospital in Memphis. In 2019, the former executive dean and vice chancellor at the University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center, who served on Methodist University Hospital’s board from 2011 to 2017, joined the lawsuit.
The whistleblower complaint alleges physicians at West Clinic referred patients to Methodist Le Bonheur in exchange for kickbacks. The scheme caused damages to Medicare and Medicaid in excess of $800 million, according to the amended complaint filed last year.