Mendiondo

I. BACKGROUND

A. Factual History1

Mendiondo began her nursing career in 1975 and special- ized in critical care. In 2000, she accepted a nursing position in the cardiovascular department at CHMC. Mendiondo detected certain practices at CHMC that were intended to inflate Medicare reimbursements and alleges that she was investigating these practices. She alleges, for example, that one of the doctors at CHMC ordered and performed numerous unnecessary cardiac catheterizations, including repeat cathe- terizations on the same patients. Additionally, Mendiondo claims that the hospital insisted on implanting single ventricu- lar pacemakers, even when patients needed biventricular pacemakers, because the single pacemakers resulted in higher 1 The following facts are taken from Mendiondo’s complaint. In review- ing a motion to dismiss, we accept the alleged facts as true. Kutasi v. Las Virgenes Unified Sch. Dist., 494 F.3d 1162, 1164 n.1 (9th Cir. 2007). 3348 MENDIONDO v. CENTINELA HOSPITAL Medicare reimbursements. Mendiondo asserts that CHMC also obtained reimbursement for more catheterization and radiologic procedures than were actually performed by having billing…