A Pennsylvania doctor and his wife have admitted their roles in schemes to solicit and receive kickbacks and bribes in exchange for ordering genetic tests. Yitzchok “Barry” Kurtzer, 63, and his wife, Robin Kurtzer, 62, both of Monsey, New York, pleaded guilty to an indictment charging them with conspiracy to violate the Federal Anti-Kickback Statute. Two of Barry Kurtzer’s employees, Amber Harris and Shanelyn Kennedy, have each pleaded guilty for their roles in the kickback scheme, and Dr. Lee Besen and Kimberly Schmidt have also each pleaded guilty for a related cash-for-genetic tests scheme. Sentencings for each of those defendants is pending.
Barry Kurtzer was a primary care physician with offices in the Scranton, Pennsylvania, area. Robin Kurtzer helped manage those offices. Beginning in 2018, Barry Kurtzer and Robin Kurtzer solicited and received monthly cash kickbacks and bribes in exchange for collecting DNA samples from Medicare patients and sending them for genetic tests to clinical laboratories in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The Kurtzers used their employees in the scheme, including Harris and Kennedy, who each helped collect the DNA swabs in exchange for payments to them. The cash kickbacks ranged up to $5,000, and the Kurtzers typically accepted the cash in one of Barry Kurtzer’s offices, at times behind locked doors. At one point, the Kurtzers complained that they were not getting paid enough and negotiated for higher kickbacks and bribes. As a result of these schemes, Medicare was billed over $1.3 million for tests generated from Barry Kurtzer’s practice.
