Search
Related Professionals: Pamela Coyle Brecht
PHILADELPHIA, PA – Marc Stephen Raspanti, Pamela Coyle Brecht and Douglas E. Roberts, attorneys at the law firm Pietragallo Gordon Alfano Bosick & Raspanti, LLP, authored an article titled, “A New Era of Laboratory Fraud, Part 1: Operation LabScam Redux,” that was published in the September 2016 edition of Health Care Compliance Association’s Compliance Today. Part 2 of this article will be featured in the October issue.
An early 1990s government investigation called, “Operation LabScam” returned more than $800 million to the government from clinical laboratories that had billed Medicare and other government healthcare programs for medically unnecessary tests, upcoded tests, and tests that were never conducted and provided kickbacks to physicians who referred patients for the illegal testing. This investigation was supposed to reform the laboratory industry, but now new cases of lab-based fraud and abuse have emerged.
Presently, Biodiagnostics Laboratory Services, Inc. was caught participating in a massive scam orchestrated over a seven-year period that involved bribing doctors in three states to refer patients to the lab for medically unnecessary tests. The scam resulted in a mass prosecution of laboratory executives, associates and physicians. The fines handed out to labs are some of the largest settlements ever recovered under the False Claims Act.
Pietragallo is one of the nations most experienced and respected law firms handling complex qui tam actions brought under the both the federal and the state false claims acts. Mr. Raspanti, a name partner at the firm, is recognized as one of the most successful, skilled and experienced qui tam attorneys in the United States. He has served as lead counsel for whistleblowers in false claims cases that have resulted in over $2 billion in recoveries for federal and state taxpayers. Ms, Brecht, a partner, is a vibrant member of the Qui Tam Practice Group and litigates some of the most complex Qui Tam cases filed in the United States. Mr. Roberts is a senior associate in the Government Enforcement, Compliance, and White Collar Litigation and Qui Tam Practice Groups. He has tried numerous criminal and civil cases to verdict in federal and state court.
For more information on the Health Care Compliance’s Compliance Today publication, please visit http://www.hcca-info.org/Resources/NewsRoom/ComplianceToday.aspx.