In an announcement from the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Michigan, a Tampa-based medical lab, Physicians Toxicology Laboratory, LLC (PTL), has agreed to a $4,425,000 settlement agreement to resolve allegations that it violated the False Claims Act (FCA).
According to the U.S. District Attorney, Mark Totten, PTL allegedly urged physicians to order medically unnecessary urine drug and hormone testing by submitting claims for reimbursement to the Medicare Program for those tests in a scheme to artificially boost profits off the backs of hardworking Americans paying into the tax system.
“Lab tests should be ordered based on each patient’s medical needs and not just to increase laboratory profits,” said U.S. Attorney Mark Totten. “Laboratories and ordering practitioners must play by the rules. We will not tolerate conduct by Medicare-enrolled practitioners and laboratories that unnecessarily increases costs to the Medicare Program and wastes taxpayer funds.”
The United States alleged that PTL provided their laboratory services for several medical practices across the state of Michigan. These practices then ordered urine drug tests (UDTs) for their Medicare patients, and PTL ran these tests to be billed to the tax-payer funded Medicare Benefits Program for approximately three years.