US Attorney David C. Weiss announced that Dr. Kathy Cornelius, a Delaware physician who now resides in Huntsville, Alabama, has agreed to pay $500,000 to resolve allegations that she violated the False Claims Act by ordering medically unnecessary genetic testing for Medicare beneficiaries residing in Delaware. Between October 2020 and February 2022, Dr. Cornelius referred more than 250 Delaware residents for medically unnecessary genetic tests that were paid for by Medicare. The United States alleges that Dr. Cornelius had no medical relationship with these patients and that the referrals were based on brief telemedicine consultations — often two minutes or less in duration — during which Dr. Cornelius failed to establish any legitimate medical justification for the tests. The genetic tests Dr. Cornelius ordered often cost thousands of dollars per patient.
