Appellate Court Dismisses ‘Secondhand’ Whistleblower Claims of Fresenius Overbilling Medicare

A federal appellate court is remanding a False Claims Act suit that alleges Fresenius overcharged Medicare for dialysis treatments — ruling that the whistleblower lacked standing based on a reliance on secondhand accounts.

A three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit concluded that Chester Saldivar cannot file a lawsuit that accuses Fresenius of overbilling Medicare for vials of Epogen and Zemplar, because he learned about that practice from conversations with colleagues.

Saldivar contended that Fresenius would overfill the dialysis treatment vials and bill Medicare for the additional milliliters that the company had received at no cost. He had known of the company’s practice to overfill the vials by working as chief technical, but was unaware of Fresenius’ billing procedures, which is fundamental to the allegations.