Abbott Should Again Face Medicare Fraud Suit, Justices Told

A whistleblower asked the US Supreme Court to revive a False Claim Act suit alleging that Abbott Laboratories Inc., Arriva Medical LLC, and Alere Inc. improperly billed Medicare for diabetic testing supplies.

The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled April 22 that Troy Olhausen didn’t show that the companies knowingly submitted false statements to the government. The Medicare rules he alleged the defendants violated are susceptible to multiple reasonable interpretations, the court said.

But the Eleventh Circuit improperly concluded that the complaint didn’t satisfy the scienter standard in the FCA, Olhausen said in his petition that ...