Kickbacks
kickbacks
A kickback is a form of negotiated bribery in which a commission is paid to the bribe-taker in exchange for services rendered.
Kickbacks are sometimes associated with facilitating the award of contracts. The recipient of the kickback has influence or decision-making authority to award a valuable contract to the giver of the kickback. Once the contract is awarded and that party gets the benefit of the contract, they kickback, or reward the person who made the arrangements. In some situations such as government contracting, businesses are supposed to make bids or proposals are be evaluated on objective criteria. In that case, a kickback scheme is not only unethical, it’s also illegal.
U.S. Department of Justice Recovers Over $2.9 Billion in 2024[1]
Many of these cases involve fraudulent Medicare claims and kickbacks in the healthcare industry.
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Community Health Network Inc. paid $345 million to settle allegations of overcompensating physicians and tying bonuses to referral volume as part of an illegal referral and kickback scheme.
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Prema Thekkek, Paksn Inc., and affiliated nursing homes entered into a $45.6 million settlement to resolve claims that they paid kickbacks to physicians through medical directorships to induce patient referrals.
- DaVita Inc. paid $34.5 million to settle allegations it paid kickbacks to a competitor and to physicians to drive referrals to its dialysis centers.
Kickbacks in the healthcare industry are especially harmful because of their potential to interfere with medical decisions that are supposed to be made with the best interest of the patient as the primary concern. Those decisions are not supposed to be influenced by financial gain.
- U.S. Department of Justice. “U.S. Department of Justice. 2025. “False Claims Act Settlements and Judgments Exceed $2.9B in Fiscal Year 2024.” Justice.gov. January 15, 2025. https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/false-claims-act-settlements-and-judgments-exceed-29b-fiscal-year-2024. ↵