Government health care programs were billed for the unnecessary tests each time a Connecticut patient on Medicaid or Medicare was tested, according to the state.

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — A lab with Branford offices and its owners have agreed to pay over $1.2 million in a settlement alleging they facilitated unnecessary tests and submitted false claims to health care programs.

Genco Lab, LLC, and owners Paul Conroy, Tricia Conroy, and Charles Orefice, entered a civil settlement to pay $1,255,825 for allegedly committing fraud in two ways between September 2021 and December 2023, according to both the U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut, David X. Sullivan, and Connecticut Attorney General William Tong.

The state said Genco submitted claims for urine drug tests for Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries in sober homes, but the tests were for "residential monitoring," which the state deemed unnecessary and "explicitly prohibited."

The state alleged that Genco also performed duplicate tests by conducting both a "presumptive" screening test and a more specific, yet more expensive "definitive" test at the same time on the same day without a practitioner's review. Government health care programs were billed for both types of tests each time a Connecticut patient on Medicaid or Medicare was tested, according to the state.

“For two years, Genco repeatedly billed Connecticut Medicaid for these medically unnecessary urine tests,” Tong said in a statement regarding the settlement. “My...

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