The manager of a Baton Rouge medical testing company raided by the FBI this week was allegedly paying doctors to refer patients—mostly elderly—to his clinic for medically unnecessary cancer tests, the federal government said.
As WBRZ-TV reports, Acadian Diagnostic Laboratories Chief Financial Officer Kevin Hanley was charged in the $2.1 billion fraud scheme.
In all, 35 people across the country were arrested and charged with fraud in schemes that focused on Medicare beneficiaries, according to the Associated Press.
Officials said a telemarketing or in-person “recruiter” would convince a Medicare enrollee to take a genetic test, assuring them that the program would pay the full cost. The patient would provide their Medicare information. A doctor in league with the fraudsters would approve the test, and collect a kickback from the recruiter company. A lab participating in the scheme would run the test, bill Medicare, and share payments collected from the government with the recruiter.
Bills to Medicare connected with the scam typically ranged from $7,000 to $12,000, Richmond said, with some much higher. In many cases the patient never got a report back, or the results provided were incomprehensible. Medicare paid out hundreds of millions of dollars before authorities detected the fraud and moved in.
Fraudsters preyed on people’s fears of harboring genetic markers for cancer. However, genetic testing is not routinely used to screen for cancer.
Read the full report on the crackdown from the Associated Press here, and WBRZ-TV’s local reporting here.
