Ten people, including two medical doctors, have been indicted in a $300 million healthcare fraud, announced US Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Chad E. Meacham. The defendants — who stand accused of accused of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud, conspiracy to pay and receive healthcare kickbacks, offering or paying illegal kickbacks, and soliciting or receiving illegal kickbacks — were charged in a 26-count indictment. According to the indictment, the founders of several lab companies, including Unified Laboratory Services, Spectrum Diagnostic Laboratory, and Reliable Labs LLC, allegedly paid kickbacks to induce medical professionals to order medically unnecessary lab tests, which they then billed to Medicare and other federal healthcare programs. The medical professionals — including internal medicine specialist Eduardo Canova, family medicine practitioner Jose Maldonado, and nurse practitioner Keith Wichinski — allegedly accepted the bribes and ordered millions of dollars’ worth of tests. Meanwhile, Unified, Spectrum, and Reliable disguised the kickbacks as legitimate business transactions, including as medical advisor agreement payments, salary offsets, lease payments, and marketing commissions.
As a result of these kickbacks, laboratories controlled by the defendants were able to submit more than $300 million in billing to federal government healthcare programs. Between 2015 and 2018, Dr. Maldonado alone received more than $400,000 in kickbacks for ordering more than $4 million worth of lab tests and Dr. Canova received more than $300,000 in kickbacks for ordering more than $12 million worth of lab tests.
