Lab Owner Jailed for 27 Years Over $463M Medicare Fraud

Facts

• A Georgia man who owned LabSolutions LLC — a genetic testing lab registered with Medicare — has been sentenced to 27 years in prison for his role in a $463M fraud, the US Justice Department said on Friday.¹
• Minal Patel was convicted last December for healthcare fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to defraud the US, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and payment of illegal healthcare kickbacks.²
• According to prosecutors, Patel falsely told Medicare beneficiaries that the federal healthcare insurance program covered cancer genetic tests. He then paid kickbacks and bribes to telemedicine doctors to "robo-sign" prescriptions to patients who didn't need them.³
• Patel reportedly submitted over $463M in claims to Medicare and personally received over $21M from the health program between July 2016 and August 2019.⁴
• Terming it one of the biggest healthcare frauds in history, the Justice Department had said that the genetic testing fraud caused $2.1B in losses to Medicare.⁵
• The case was brought as part of Operation Double Helix — a federal law enforcement action led by the Health Care Fraud Strike Force — and resulted in charges against dozens of professionals in telemedicine companies and cancer genetic testing laboratories.⁶

Sources: ¹Reuters, ²Outlook India, ³United States Department of Justice, ⁴Tribune India News Service, ⁵Bloomberg, and ⁶The Siasat Daily.

Narratives

• Narrative A, as provided by NPR Online News. Billing the federal government for the bogus medical work and related kickbacks and bribes impacts the entire country because it erodes patients' confidence and costs taxpayers billions. Patel placed his greed before the needs of the people he was supposed to serve and bilked hundreds of millions of dollars from Medicare through a fraudulent scheme — he must pay the price for his criminal deeds.
• Narrative B, as provided by CNBC. To prevent Medicare beneficiaries from being victimized and discourage criminals from exploiting the promise of new medical technologies for financial gain, the government must slow down the pace at which information about genetic testing is disseminated and implement safeguards. It must audit every laboratory, doctor, and telemedicine company associated with the healthcare program to check if they meet their ethical obligations and hire enough agents to keep up with the various schemes.

Predictions