Quest Diagnostics pleads guilty to Medicare fraud and false patient test results.
New York, NY(JusticeNewsFlash.com)–A corporate whistleblower informed the federal government, about five years ago, Quest Diagnostics and its subsidiary Nichols Institute Diagnostics (NID) was defrauding the federal Medicare program and thousands of patients. Thomas Cantor, a biochemist discovered Quest Diagnostics and NID, founded in New York and headquartered in Madison, New Jersey, supplied inaccurate test kits for dialysis patients, which led to his corporate whistleblower complaint. Cantor, his lawyers, and attorneys for the government sued Quest and NID after the biochemist discovered the national laboratory company was billing the government for faulty medical tests and harmful Vitamin D therapies. The vitamin D treatments were for patients suffering with kidney disease who were inaccurately diagnosed by the faulty test results.
Cantor, President of Scantibodies Laboratory Inc., in California, discovered Quest’s faulty test kits after doctors disputed Quest’s results and asked him to conduct a second test. Cantor’s laboratory testing revealed Quest’s and NID’s test results were consistently and repeatedly wrong. NID pleaded guilty to a felony charge of misbranding relating to thyroid test for dialysis patients before the judge and Brooklyn Federal Court. Court documents reveal NID entered into an agreement with the U.S. Attorney to pay a $40 million fine. Corporate leaders at Quest, a clinical laboratory company and its subsidiary, NID, agreed to pay $262 million civil settlement to the federal government for their corporate wrongdoing.
The United States legislature passed the federal False Claims Act to encourage whistleblowers to come forward and report corporate misconduct, fraud, product liability and patient injury risks. Before filing the legal action, through the federal court system, Cantor sent thousands of e-mails to health care providers about the inaccurate tests without success. Cantor is entitled to a percentage of the settlement, which equates to $45 million, in this product liability, government fraud, and risk for patient injury litigation, because he came forward and blew the whistle on the illegal practices of Quests. The American people and the federal government do not condone businesses who continue to earn money at the expense of thousands of patients seeking professional help from services Quest and NID falsely claimed to provide.
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