Laboratory marketer Thomas Anthony Carnaggio, of Irmo, South Carolina, and his marketing company, as well as three physicians in Charlotte, North Carolina: Steven Bauer, MD, Larry Berman, MD, and Alireza Nami, MD, and their medical practices, have agreed to pay a total of $1,373,400 to resolve alleged False Claims Act violations arising from their involvement in laboratory kickback schemes. The parties have agreed to cooperate with the Justice Department’s investigations of other participants in the alleged schemes. The settlement resolves allegations that a marketer and his marketing company offered kickbacks to doctors on behalf of a laboratory in Anderson, South Carolina, and that doctors and their medical practices received kickbacks from the laboratory in return for laboratory referrals. The alleged kickbacks resulted in the submission of false or fraudulent laboratory testing claims to Medicare and TRICARE in violation of the False Claims Act.
