The government’s complaint alleges that, from January 2013 through March 2022, SMG paid Dr. Agnihotri because they wanted to increase the number of cardiovascular surgeries at SEMC in Boston, as a means to grow their profits via reimbursement from Medicare and other insurers. The government alleges that the defendants recruited Dr. Agnihotri, a cardiac surgeon, to serve as the Chief of Cardiac Surgery at SEMC. The Stark Law protects patients and the Medicare program from physicians’ financial relationships leading to unnecessary overutilization of services or increased costs.

Relevant to this case, the Stark Law prohibits a hospital from billing Medicare for services referred by a physician with whom the hospital has an improper compensation relationship. Steward – the owner of SMG and SEMC – is an integrated healthcare system and one of the largest, private, for-profit health care networks in the nation.Ĭongress enacted the Stark Law to protect against physicians’ financial relationships from impacting their medical decision-making for Medicare patients. (SMG) and Steward Health Care System, LLC (Steward) alleging that they violated the Physician Self-Referral Law (commonly referred to as the “Stark Law”) and submitted and caused the submission of false claims and statements to the Medicare program. Elizabeth’s Medical Center of Boston, Inc. Attorney’s Office has filed a complaint under the False Claims Act against Steward St.

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