MINNEAPOLIS — A former top-level Starkey Hearing Foundation employee has filed a whistleblower claim alleging she was fired weeks after raising questions about business practices.

In her lawsuit filed in Los Angeles last week, Maria Vanessa Boys Smith claimed she was terminated after she told executives that the foundation was inflating the number of hearing aids it donated during charity missions. Boys Smith alleged the foundation claimed it gave away 175,000 hearing aids in 2014, but “would be lucky” to have fitted 100,000.