Three Michigan companies have agreed to pay $6 million to settle allegations under the False Claims Act that Accela Medical LLC improperly billed for lab tests performed by Coventry Diagnostics LLC and its wholly owned subsidiary Western Slope Laboratories LLC.  According to the complaint, the companies billed Medicare for $900 worth of unnecessary or unrequested urine drug tests for nearly every patient referred to the lab for testing.

All three companies were allegedly controlled by Thomas McCormick, who was already barred from billing Medicare due to a previous health care fraud conviction.  According to the complaint, McCormick was able to hide his involvement from Medicare since another individual, Charles Reinhardt, the owner of record, applied for the company’s Medicare provider number.  Reinhardt allegedly split profits from the scheme with McCormick and, when Medicare began to ask questions, helped McCormick fraudulently conceal his ownership and control of the company.  The scheme drew government scrutiny after Medicare data analysis showed that Accela had used a particular billing code more than any provider in the nation.

Read the entire article, “Troy labs to pay $6M for fraud; scheme billed $900 worth of urine drug tests for every patient”