7 people from 5 states accused in $40 million Medicare, Medicaid scheme in Colorado

DENVER (KDVR) – Seven people from five different states have been indicted for allegedly defrauding Medicare and Colorado Medicaid for more than $40 million.

According to a release by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado , the seven were involved together through several companies, including Tesis Labs, LLC, based in Lafayette and 303 Diagnostics, LLC, based in Aurora.

While the companies were based in Colorado, the seven people indicted were from Maine, Florida, New York, California and Arizona.

Four of the seven allegedly conspired to defraud Medicare and state Medicaid in several ways, including by paying kickbacks and bribes to supposed marketing companies for referrals for medically unnecessary genetic testing.

These referrals led to $40 million in false claims that Medicare and state Medicaid paid to the labs, according to the release.

According to the release, all seven allegedly conspired to offer and pay illegal bribes and kickbacks for health care benefit programs like Medicare, state Medicaid and private health insurance plans.

They agreed to pay kickbacks and bribes to people they identified as “marketers” in order to solicit patients to participate in unnecessary genetic testing. This included elderly Medicare beneficiaries.

According to the release, these kickback recipients used call centers to target the victims of the unnecessary tests.

The case is being investigated by the US Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General, the FBI Denver Field Division and the IRS Criminal Investigation department.

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