Parsippany Medical Co. To Pay $95K For Alleged Kickbacks: Feds

PARSIPPANY, NJ - A Morris County sonography company has agreed to shell out $95,000 to feds to resolve allegations of receiving kickbacks in exchange for patient referrals, federal authorities said.

As part of the settlement, which charged Parsippany-based H&D Sonography LLC, the company must maintain good conduct for three years to avoid criminal conviction, U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger said in a statement.

According to admissions filed by H&D in the settlement, from January 2015 through December 2018, H&D and others agreed to pay rent “in excess of reasonable value” to doctors in exchange for patient referrals for diagnostic testing, which were then billed to Medicare.

These agreements resulted in "inflated" rent payments from H&D to the physicians, purportedly to use space in the doctors' offices each week in order to perform diagnostic tests.

“H&D agreed to pay for significantly more hours than the technicians actually used, as a method to funnel payments to physicians, federal officials said. “H&D structured the payments as sublease payments for the physicians’ shared offices.”

The civil allegations were originally made in a lawsuit filed under the whistleblower provisions of the False Claims Act brought by a physician. The whistleblower will receive approximately 17 percent of the proceeds of the civil settlement, federal officials said.