A Pennsylvania woman admitted participating in a conspiracy to receive bribes and kickbacks in exchange for ordering genetic tests. Kimberly Schmidt, 46, of Moscow, Pennsylvania, pleaded guilty by videoconference to an information charging her with one count of conspiring to violate the anti-kickback statute. Schmidt worked for Lee Besen, a primary care physician with a medical office in Peckville, Pennsylvania. From December 2018, Besen and Schmidt accepted 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 cash kickbacks typically ranged from $500 to $1,500, and Besen typically accepted the cash inside his medical office. When Besen did not receive his kickback and bribe payments, the volume of genetic tests he ordered dipped. But when those payments flowed to Besen, he increased that volume because, as Besen said in a recorded conversation, “Greenbacks speak.” Besen enlisted Schmidt to help him with the scheme by preparing paperwork for the genetic tests. In turn, Schmidt received kickbacks and bribes that were calculated based on the volume of genetic tests that Besen generated.
