The DOJ highlights the case as further evidence of success in its crackdown on healthcare fraud, calling it another achievement for the Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Team (HEAT) initiative.
At the same time, the major U.S. lab testing company is arranging to file for bankruptcy protection by Nov. 10, which will allow it to turn control over to its lenders, according to an anonymous source quoted by Bloomberg News.
“The Department of Justice is committed to ensuring that laboratory tests, including drug and genetic tests, are ordered based on each patient’s medical needs and not just to increase physician and laboratory profits,” Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Benjamin C. Mizer of the Justice Department’s Civil Division said in a prepared statement. “We will not tolerate practices such as the ordering of excessive, non-patient specific tests and the provision of inducements to physicians that lead to unnecessary costs being imposed upon our nation’s healthcare programs.”
