Laboratory Corporation of America (Labcorp) has agreed to pay $14.5 million to resolve allegations that it violated the False Claims Act by submitting false claims to Medicare for medically unnecessary urine drug testing. The settlement centers on a testing panel marketed by the company as “Toxassure Comprehensive.”
The US Department of Justice alleged that from Jan 1, 2018, through Nov 22, 2023, Labcorp routinely submitted claims for both presumptive and definitive urine drug testing for the same patient, on the same date of service, using the same urine sample. The “Toxassure Comprehensive” panel consisted of a preselected combination of these tests, and the company billed Medicare using both the all-inclusive presumptive code and the highest-tier definitive code each time the panel was performed.
“The government expects that any testing it pays for is medically necessary and not wasteful or structured in a way that maximizes billing opportunities for providers at the expense of the federal fisc,” says Brett A Shumate, assistant attorney general of the Department of Justice Civil Division, in a release. “We will continue to hold providers who do otherwise accountable.”
Presumptive urine drug testing detects the presence or absence of drug classes, while definitive testing identifies...
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