NEW YORK – Atlanta-based LifeBrite Laboratories said Friday it filed a lawsuit against several private insurers asking for more than $1 billion in damages and accusing them of making false allegations that ruined the lab's reputation.
The firm and its owner, Christian Fletcher filed the complaint in the State Court of Gwinnett County, Georgia, against Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia, Elevance Health, Anthem Insurance Companies, UnitedHealthcare, and CVS Health, which owns Aetna. None of the companies accused in the lawsuit immediately responded to a request for comment.
LifeBrite's lawsuit follows an acquittal in March by a jury of Fletcher of federal charges of wire fraud, money laundering, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. In that indictment filed in the Middle District of Florida, prosecutors had accused him and nine other individuals of conspiring to defraud payors through false billing claims for screening tests and confirmatory tests to detect recent drug or alcohol use among people who were receiving treatment for substance abuse.
The criminal charges were related to accusations of improper pass-through billing by rural hospitals and LifeBrite. According to the indictment, LifeBrite conducted drug tests on individuals throughout the US and worked with co-conspirators at rural hospitals to bill for those tests as though they had been performed at the hospitals.
But in the complaint filed on July 20, LifeBrite said the...
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