WEST PALM BEACH — After federal agents clamped down on one operation to defraud Medicare , prosecutors say Boca Raton brothers Justin and Trevor Blair formed another.
They launched PIC Group, a call center dedicated to persuading Medicare beneficiaries and their doctors to order unnecessary genetic tests . PIC Group then sold the doctors’ orders to a laboratory in Texas, which billed Medicare $3.5 million and paid PIC Group more than $2.5 million in kickbacks and bribes .
The Blair brothers were two of nearly 200 defendants charged last year for defrauding Medicare — the federal insurance program for older and disabled patients — out of more than $2.75 billion. They pleaded guilty in November to conspiring to defraud the U.S. and receiving kickbacks in connection with a federal health care program, cementing a deal with prosecutors to have four additional charges against them dismissed…