A group of healthcare companies with clinics in St. Louis and Kansas City are the subject of a Department of Justice complaint, but the founder and board chairman denies any wrongdoing.
The complaint against Modern Vascular and its founder Yury Gampel alleges violations of the False Claims Act in the form of improper financial arrangements between healthcare providers and referring physicians.
“That can lead to overutilization and increase the cost of health care services paid by taxpayers,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian M. Boynton, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division, in a statement online. “We will continue to ensure that health care decisions are based on the needs of patients and not the financial interests of providers.”
From Jan. 1, 2018, through June 30, 2022, the complaint says Gampel, 15 Modern Vascular labs and five affiliated companies allegedly offered physicians an investment opportunity as a way to sway referrals from among their Medicare and TRICARE patients for the treatment of peripheral arterial disease (PAD).
But Gampel, who is originally from Ukraine, disagrees with the allegation that there is anything improper about Modern Vascular’s business structure in which some of its investors are also physicians.
“The DOJ’s continued insistence on challenging our business structure – which is compliant with the law – is frustrating, to say the least,” he said. “We were cooperative and the government reviewed tens of thousands of documents over the course of two years. We had hoped that the government would appreciate how our organization runs and how much we care about compliance."
PAD occurs when the flow of blood in a patient’s legs and feet is restricted.
“The services we provide patients are important,” Gampel told the St. Louis Record. “When a patient doesn’t receive the proper treatment for PAD, the disease progresses, and a patient ultimately may need to go through an amputation. The risk of death after an extremity amputation in three years’ time is comparable to the risk of death in cases of advanced cancer.”
The DOJ further accuses Gampel of setting aggressive goals for the procedures in an attempt to pressure Modern Vascular physicians and radiologists to increase invasive surgical procedures. Gampel argues that the complaint lacks merit.
There are no allegations that the organization created fake documents, made illicit payments, or falsified invoices.
“Modern Vascular’s business practices comply with the spirit and the letter of the law,” Gampel added. "Indeed, the DOJ’s complaint tacitly admits that no investor of Modern Vascular has ever received a payment based on the volume of referrals while disregarding Modern Vascular’s multiple compliance safeguards."