NEW YORK – Maryland-based lab billing firm VitalAxis has agreed to pay $300,479.58 to resolve False Claims Act allegations that it caused the submission of false lab claims.
According to the US Department of Justice, the company billed Medicare for medically unnecessary respiratory pathogen panels run on seniors who received COVID-19 tests.
In 2020, VitalAxis provided billing services for an unnamed diagnostic lab in Atlanta that provided COVID-19 testing for senior living communities. The lab ordered VitalAxis to bill Medicare for respiratory pathogen panels purportedly ordered by a physician who had not, in fact, ordered the tests and was not eligible to treat Medicare beneficiaries. VitalAxis instead billed Medicare under the name of a different physician, and Medicare paid for the tests.
"Unscrupulous companies that exploit the Medicare billing system divert important resources away from the program and abuse patient trust," Ryan Buchanan, US attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, said in a statement.
VitalAxis received a credit in connection with the settlement announced due to their cooperation, including by performing and disclosing the results of an internal investigation, disclosing relevant facts and material not known to the government but relevant to its investigation, providing information relevant to potential misconduct by other individuals and entities, and admitting liability.