Biotronik Inc. of Lake Oswego, Oregon, will pay the United States $4.9 million to resolve allegations made under the False Claims Act that the company made various improper payments to induce physicians to use devices that it manufactured and sold.

The settlement resolves allegations that Biotronik, through the payment of kickbacks to physicians, caused hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers to submit false claims to Medicare and Medicaid for the implantation of Biotronik pacemakers, defibrillators and cardiac resynchronization therapy devices.

Biotronik allegedly induced electrophysiologists and cardiologists practicing in Nevada and Arizona to continue using Biotronik devices, or to convert to Biotronik devices, by paying the implanting physician in the form of repeated meals at expensive restaurants and inflated payments for membership on a physician advisory board.

The settlement announced stems from a whistleblower complaint filed by a former Biotronik employee, Brian Sant, pursuant to the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act, which permit private persons to bring a lawsuit on behalf of the United States and to share in the proceeds of the suit.

The act permits the United States to intervene and take over the lawsuit, as it did in this case as to some of Sant’s allegations.

Sant will receive approximately $840,000 of the federal settlement.