Doctor-owned businesses that act as middlemen between medical device makers and hospitals are “inherently suspect” and some of their practices may violate U.S. anti-kickback laws, a government inspector general said.
Daniel Levinson, the inspector general for the Health and Human Services Department, today issued an unusual “special fraud alert” about so-called physician-owned distributorships, or PODs. The companies sell medical devices that the doctor owners then use in surgical procedures on their own patients.
