Lab Pays up to $200,000 to Settle Kickback Claims

Columbia, South Carolina

A Georgia genetic testing laboratory has agreed to pay up to $200,000 to settle claims that it paid unlawful kickbacks to a counseling group to induce genetic testing referrals, federal authorities said.

Alpha Genomix Laboratories, Inc. allegedly paid the salary of an individual who primarily worked for Aiken Counseling Group, LLC, disguising kickbacks, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of South Carolina. The lab will pay $35,000 upfront and a percentage of its gross annual revenues up to a total of $200,000 to resolve the claims.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office alleges that most of the referrals were not legitimately ordered by a physician and were medically unnecessary. Medicare and South Carolina Medicaid paid for these fraudulent claims, which violated the Anti-Kickback Statute and the False Claims Act.

The allegations settled arose from a lawsuit filed by a psychiatrist formerly employed by Aiken Counseling Group, under the whistleblower provisions of the False Claims Act. The owner of the group, Lain Bradford, was sentenced in February 2020 to three years of probation and ordered to pay restitution, after pleading guilty to health care fraud and drug offenses in a related case.

Aiken Counseling Group filed for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy in January 2018 and is no longer in business. Alpha Genomix Laboratories was sold to new ownership since the allegations.

The Alpha Genomix Laboratories, Inc. matter was investigated by the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services, the South Carolina Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, and Assistant United States Attorney Beth Warren.

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