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Gambro whistleblower awarded $56 million share of fraud settlement

Compliance Monitor, April 13, 2005

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Steven Bander, MD, a former chief medical officer for Gambro Healthcare U.S.A., was awarded $56 million of a $350.5 million settlement for blowing the whistle on the dialysis center operator's Medicare and Medicaid fraud in 2001, the Jefferson City (MO) News Tribune reported March 27.

Bander, a St. Louis kidney specialist, filed his own lawsuit in 2001, which prompted the Justice Department to get involved. The result of the federal case against Gambro is the fifth largest healthcare fraud settlement in history.

According to the lawsuits, Gambro created a false company to inflate its billings by $500 per patient per month, the News Tribune reported. At the time, the company treated more than 40,000 patients per year.

According to U.S. Attorney Jim Martin, Bander filed suit after trying to stop the the fraud himself. Martin also told the News Tribune that although the sum designated for Bander is large, the government wouldn't have known about the fraud without his contributions. "We collected $350 million from Gambro Healthcare specifically because this man initiated the whistleblower lawsuit that he did," Martin said.

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