The Office of Massachusetts Attorney General (AG) Andrea Campbell announced the criminal indictment of several Massachusetts-based health care providers and their owners in connection with allegedly false claims they submitted to the Massachusetts Medicaid program, MassHealth. In what Campbell characterized as a fraud and kickback arrangement, the defendants submitted more than $7.8 million in false claims for reimbursement associated with urine drug tests and home health services that were not provided, not medically necessary, or not properly authorized.

According to a statement from Campbell’s office, a grand jury in Boston returned indictments against several MassHealth providers and their respective owners. The Massachusetts grand jury returned indictments for the following entities:

• Central Lab Partners, LLC (CLP), a Worcester-based clinical laboratory;
• Cynthia Norton of West Boylston, the owner of CLP;
• Patient Care Solutions, LLC (PCS), a Danvers-based home health agency;
• Colette Massamba and Maxwell Dede of Lynn, the owners of PCS;
• Optimum Labs, Inc. (Optimum), a New-Bedford-based clinical laboratory;
• William Owens of New Bedford, the owner of Optimum; and
• Maria Batilo, a Falmouth-based physician.

The criminal matter will proceed in Suffolk Superior Court in Boston.

Massachusetts alleges that CLP and PCS targeted sober homes that conducted frequent urine drug tests for sobriety monitoring purposes, and then enrolled those patients in urine drug tests and home...

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