After his involvement in a USD 463 million genetic testing scam....
In US state of Georgia, an Indian-origin laboratory owner was sentenced to 27 years in prison due to his involvement in a USD 463 million genetic testing scam spanning over three years to defraud Medicare.
On Friday Minal Patel, who owned LabSolutions LLC, was sentenced to 27 years in prison for his role in the scheme to defraud Medicare by submitting over USD 463 million in genetic and other laboratory tests that patients did not need and were procured through the payment of kickbacks and bribes.
The 44-year-old conspired with patient brokers, telemedicine companies and call centers to target Medicare beneficiaries with telemarketing calls falsely stating that their package covered expensive cancer genetic tests, the Department of Justice said on Friday.
After the Medicare beneficiaries agreed to take tests, Patel paid kickbacks and bribes to patient brokers to obtain signed doctors’ orders authorizing the tests from telemedicine companies, the department said in a press release.
To conceal the kickbacks, Patel required the patient brokers to sign contracts that falsely stated that they were performing legitimate advertising services for LabSolutions.
LabSolutions submitted more than USD 463 million in claims to Medicare from July 2016 through August 2019 including for thousands of medically unnecessary genetic tests, of which the national health insurance programme paid over USD 187 million.
“Patel bilked hundreds of millions of dollars from Medicare through a complex testing fraud scheme. He is now paying the price for this crime," he said.
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