On May 15, the US Attorneys for the Southern District of New York announced that they had settled their civil fraud lawsuit against Balance Diagnostics USA, LLC, a diagnostic testing facility based in Cedarhurst, New York, for paying kickbacks to physicians and their medical practices in violation of the Anti-Kickback Statute.
The complaint alleged that between 2009 and 2019, Balance, which provides on-site mobile diagnostic testing services, offered and paid physicians and their practices hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks in the form of sham “rent payments” in order to induce them to refer patients to Balance. The complaint also alleged that Balance would inquire with the physicians about the number of patients they anticipated referring to Balance for diagnostic testing services each month and would then use these anticipated referral rates to negotiate the amount paid in rent to the providers each month. Notably, if the monthly referral rates fell below the levels that Balance had expected, the government alleged that Balance would frequently reduce the rent amount paid to the providers.
As a part of the settlement agreement, Balance agreed to pay $1,725,850 to the United States and $774,150 to New York state. In addition, Balance agreed to the entry of a consent judgment of $4,280,108 in favor of the United States and $1,918,892 in favor of New York state.
The press release can be found here.
Source: Testing Facility Settles $2.5 Million Anti-Kickback Lawsuit / The National Law Review