◆ Orlando, Florida-based cardiologist Ashish Pal has paid $6.75 million to settle false claims allegations over medically unnecessary ablations and vein stent procedures, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida said Sept. 17.^[1] Pal, who owns Interventional Cardiology and Vascular Consultants PLC, allegedly “(1) performed ablations and stent procedures on veins that did not qualify for treatment under accepted standards of medical practice; (2) overstated the degree of reflux and the diameter of veins in medical records to make the ablations appear to meet generally recognized medical standards, when, in fact, they did not; (3) falsely documented patient symptoms and conservative therapy measures in medical records to justify the ablation and stent procedures; (4) performed ablations on asymptomatic patients for cosmetic purposes; and (5) placed vein stents in patients in excess of the contemporaneous standards of medical practice,” according to the settlement.^[2] Pal didn’t admit liability.