Surgeon To Pay $1.75M In Malden Spinal Device Case: Feds

MALDEN, MA — A sixth surgeon has agreed to a settlement with the U.S. Attorney's office to resolve allegations that he accepted kickbacks from Malden-based spinal device company SpineFrontier, Inc. Jeffrey Carlson, an orthopedic surgeon in Newport News, VA, will pay $1.75 million, the U.S. Attorney's office said.

In March, the federal government filed a False Claims Act complaint against SpineFrontier and its executives, accusing the company of paying kickbacks to spine surgeons itself and through a sham third-party business, Impartial Medical Experts, LLC.

Under the settlement agreement, Carlson admitted that he estimated his purported consulting hours based on the number of times he used a SpineFrontier product in a given month, as opposed to the time he actually spent consulting, the USAO said.

Carlson admitted that he cannot document the consulting hours he submitted for payment to SpineFrontier and Impartial Medical Experts, federal authorities said. He also received consulting payments from SpineFrontier for time he spent during his surgical procedures, for which Medicare and other federal health care programs were already paying him, and accepted thousands of dollars in free meals for himself and his surgical staff from SpineFrontier every time he used the company's product during a surgical procedure, according to the USAO.

"This settlement continues our commitment to ensuring that doctors choose medical products solely on the basis of what is best for the patient, and not what is best for the surgeon's pockets," U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling said in a statement. "For their part, manufacturers must play by the rules and compete on a level playing field. We will investigate any doctor, like Dr. Carlson, who accepts money from a device manufacturer simply for using that company’s products."

Previously: U.S. Attorney Sues Malden Spinal Device Company