NEW YORK (Reuters) – The United States has joined a whistleblower lawsuit accusing a unit of Germany’s Fresenius Medical Care AG of defrauding Medicare and other healthcare programs by billing for unnecessary procedures on dialysis patients.
According to a complaint filed on Tuesday in Brooklyn federal court, Fresenius Vascular Care routinely performed the procedures at nine centers in New York City and its suburbs from January 2012 through June 2018.
The U.S. Department of Justice said Fresenius knowingly subjected patients with end-stage renal disease, including elderly and lower-income people, to the procedures as a means to drive up revenue.
Fresenius did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The civil lawsuit had originally been filed in 2014, and accused Fresenius of violating the federal False Claims Act.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Richard Chang)
