A federal jury in Detroit convicted a California man today for his role in defrauding Medicare of over $4 million in fraudulent claims for medically unnecessary urine drug testing for patients receiving pain management treatment. According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Sherif Khalil, 50, of Redondo Beach, conspired with others to submit claims to Medicare for the highest-reimbursing urine drug testing panels, which doctors did not want or order. Sherif Khalil operated Spectra Clinical Labs, a toxicology lab located in Gardena, California. As the owner of Spectra, Khalil implemented a scheme to pay marketers a percentage of Medicare reimbursements and incentivize them to obtain doctors’ orders for expensive drug testing panels. Khalil concealed Spectra’s payments to marketers by routing the payments through nominally independent marketing companies that Khalil secretly controlled. To maximize Spectra’s profits and their own commission payments, Spectra’s marketers then trained staff members at doctors’ offices to send Spectra orders for medically unnecessary urine drug tests that doctors did not actually want or authorize. Khalil also knew that orders Spectra received from physician practices were not supported by documentation of medical necessity.
