C.R. Bard and Affiliates Pay $17 Million to Resolve Kickback Allegations
- January 31, 2025
C.R. Bard, Inc. and its affiliates, Liberator Medical Supply, Inc., Liberator Holdings, and Rochester Medical Corporation, agreed to pay $17 million to resolve kickback allegations, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia Richard S. Moultrie, Jr. announced January 23.
According to a press release, between 2016 and February 2020, the defendants provided discounts, excessive free samples, and cost savings for in-office supplies to urology practice groups to persuade them to use Bard’s own “Link” prescription form to prescribe intermittent catheters to their patients.
The release noted Bard began marketing intermittent catheters in 2013, after it acquired Rochester Medical, Inc., a developer and supplier of urological products. After the acquisition, Bard’s sales representatives allegedly began leveraging discounts on and free samples of in-office urological products to convince urology practice groups to make Bard’s “Link” prescription form—which listed the various Bard intermittent catheters—the standard catheter prescription form for its group.
Two years later, Bard announced its acquisition of Liberator Medical and Liberator Holdings to create its own medical equipment subsidiary for the sale of intermittent catheters directly to Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries. The government alleged that Bard then used the Link prescription form to encourage urology practices to prescribe intermittent catheters through Liberator Medical rather than other durable medical equipment suppliers.
The settlement resolves allegations only and there has been no determination of liability.