NEW YORK – The US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Wisconsin said this week that the co-owner of a Milwaukee-area clinical laboratory has been sentence to 21 months in prison for paying kickbacks for test referrals.
According to the court, Justin Hanson and his co-defendant Mohammed Kazim Ali, owners of the clinical lab Noah Associates, operated a kickback scheme in which they paid the unnamed owner of a Milwaukee substance abuse treatment clinic kickbacks for urine drug testing referrals.
Over three years beginning in 2017, Hanson and Ali paid more than $400,000 in kickbacks and billed Medicaid and Medicare for more than $2.2 million for tests that were not medically necessary and which were not ordered by a physician, according to the US Department of Justice. Hanson was also ordered to pay a $75,000 fine.
In addition to the prison sentence, Hanson will be excluded from participation in Medicare and Medicaid. Ali pleaded guilty earlier this year to paying kickbacks and was sentenced to 15 months in prison.