MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – The Mayo Clinic and three related persons agreed Thursday to a $1.26 million settlement in a lawsuit that alleged the hospital submitted false claims of payment for lab tests it did not perform.

The suit was initially made in 2007 under the whistleblower provisions of the False Claims Act, the Department of Justice said in a statement. That act allows individuals to file civil actions on the United States’ behalf and share in the recoveries obtained.

The suit claimed the hospital knowingly billed Medicare, Medicaid and other programs for the “the preparation and examination of permanent human-tissue slides Mayo never made or examined.”

When authorities issued a subpoena to the hospital over its billing practices, it paid about $263,000 to the government. It then paid an additional $1 million due to the settlement agreement.

The department said the whistleblowers will receive $229,822.