According to the lawsuit, which was filed in July 2004, BRMC, physicians Peter Vaccaro, MD, and Kamran Saleh, MD, and V&S Medical (owned by Dr. Vaccaro and Dr. Saleh) violated the Federal False Claims Act, the Stark Law and the Medicare antikickback statute.
The lawsuit states that in 2001, Dr. Vaccaro and Dr. Saleh started to offer nuclear cardiology diagnostic services at their office and leased an imaging camera for the services. BRMC then informed the physicians that by performing the services in their office, they were violating a hospital policy preventing physicians from having competing financial interests, according to the report.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit claim that BRMC, in turn, used the policy and dispute to essentially induce Drs. Vaccaro and Saleh to refer patients to the hospital. In October 2003, BRMC and V&S Medical entered into a five-year agreement in which the hospital would pay the lease of $6,545 on the camera to V&S as well as monthly non-compete payments of $23,655, according to the report.
In 2004, V&S entered into a lease for a new camera to be installed and used at BRMC, and the hospital agreed to pay $200,000 to close the lease on the old camera, which the plaintiffs argue was the responsibility of V&S, not the hospital. BRMC then began to pay V&S $4,494.77 monthly for the lease on the new camera, along with $2,299.14 for a service agreement and the monthly non-compete payments, according to the report.
The plaintiffs also allege that during this time, BRMC filed claims for reimbursement of services that list Dr. Vaccaro or Dr. Saleh as the attending physician, which the plaintiffs claim is evidence that the physicians were referring the patients to the hospital. BRMC said in the report that they may have “misrepresented” the attending physician on the claims, according to the report.
Attorneys for the hospital and V&S Medical say the suit “mischaracterizes” the lease agreement, and that payments did not go up or down based on the number of patients Drs. Vaccaro and Saleh referred to BRMC, according to the report.
Read the Times Herald’s report on the BRMC kickback allegations.
