It began as a whistleblower suit filed by a health care supplier in the Northern District of Mississippi in December 2004, but quickly grew into a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit that had the potential to cost San Francisco-based McKesson Corp. and subsidiary McKesson Medical-Surgical MediNet Inc. nearly $1 billion and bar them from doing business with the government.
When the Justice Department issued its complaint in 2008, it charged the pharmaceutical distributor and health care information technology company and MediNet, which prepared Medicare bills, with paying kickbacks to nursing home operator Beverly Enterprises Inc. in the form of underpriced services to encourage other business paid for by Medicare, and with submitting "legally false claims" to the government.
