Midlands Area Man Found Liable for $51 Million in Health Care Fraud

[nitpicker]

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sc/pr/midlands-area-man-found-liable-51-million-health-care-fraud

Department of Justice
U.S. Attorney’s Office
District of South Carolina

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, February 1, 2018

Midlands Area Man Found Liable for $51 Million in Health Care Fraud

Columbia, South Carolina – The United States Attorney’s Office announced today that a federal jury found Floyd Calhoun “Cal” Dent, III, of Lexington, South Carolina, and his two co-conspirators liable for defrauding the federal healthcare programs Medicare and Tricare of over $51 million. The unanimous verdict was handed down on January 31, 2018, by a federal jury in Charleston, South Carolina.

The United States alleged that Mr. Dent, along with his co-conspirators, paid illegal kickbacks to physicians across the country in order to get them to order medically unnecessary blood tests from Health Diagnostics Laboratory, Inc. (“HDL”) of Richmond, Virginia, and laboratory Singulex, Inc. of Alameda, California, in violation of the Anti-Kickback Statute and the False Claims Act.
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Over the course of the two week trial, the United States presented evidence that the defendants Cal Dent, Robert Bradford “Brad” Johnson of Hanceville, Alabama, and LaTonya “Tonya” Mallory of Richmond, Virginia, conspired to pay kickbacks to induce physicians to refer patients to HDL and Singulex. The defendants arranged for “process and handling fees” of $17 to be paid to the physicians per referral and for the routine waiving of patient co-pays and deductibles. As a result of those kickbacks, physicians referred patients’ blood samples to HDL and Singulex for medically unnecessary blood tests. HDL and Singulex then submitted fraudulent claims to federal health care programs Medicare and Tricare for payment for the medically unnecessary tests.
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