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[MM Curator Summary]: Rita Ausiejus stole $400k from your W-2 using Medicaid claims for un-allowable urine tests for drug treatment.
Clipped from: https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/03/12/ticker-mass-jobs-back-to-pre-pandemic-levels-lab-charged-with-medicaid-fraud/
Lab charged with Medicaid fraud
A clinical laboratory and its owner have been accused of submitting over $400,000 in Medicaid claims for unauthorized urine drug tests, the attorney general’s office in Massachusetts said Friday.
The residential sobriety tests were medically unnecessary, the office said in a news release. Laboratories may not bill Medicaid for them.
The Burlington-based Solid Diagnostics, Inc. and its owner were indicted last month by a statewide grand jury on two counts each of Medicaid false claims, false claims and larceny over $1,200.
The lab and owner are scheduled to be arraigned in Middlesex Superior Court on March 21. It wasn’t immediately known if they had attorneys.
The attorney general’s office said last year, one of its Medicaid Fraud Division investigations resulted in charges against several clinical laboratories, their owners, marketing companies, and a doctor in connection with Medicaid fraud, money laundering and kickbacks involving over $2 million in urine drug tests.
https://www.lowellsun.com/2023/03/13/burlington-lab-and-acton-owner-accused-of-drug-test-fraud/
BOSTON — A clinical laboratory in Burlington and its Acton owner were recently indicted following allegations of Medicaid fraud involving urine drug tests that led to the submission of more than $400,000 in false claims, according to Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell.
Campbell announced in a press release on Friday that Solid Diagnostics Inc. and owner Rita Ausiejus were indicted by a grand jury in February on two counts each of Medicaid false claims, Medicaid reverse false claims and larceny over $1,200.
Campbell’s office alleges that Solid Diagnostics and Ausiejus submitted claims to MassHealth for urine drug tests that “were not appropriately ordered by physicians or other authorized prescribers.”
The AG added the urine drug tests were also for residential sobriety monitoring purposes. According to the release, laboratories are not allowed to bill MassHealth for tests performed at sober homes for residential monitoring purposes because such tests are not medically necessary.
By billing MassHealth and its managed care entities for these tests, the defendants allegedly caused over $400,000 in false claims.
Solid Diagnostics and Ausiejus are set to be arraigned in Middlesex Superior Court on March 21.
Attempts by The Sun to reach Solid Diagnostics were unsuccessful.
Campbell stated these charges “are the latest development in the work of the AG’s Office to address kickbacks and false claims among Medicaid providers, particularly independent clinical laboratories.”
According to the AG’s office, in December, an independent clinical laboratory agreed to pay $1.5 million to the MassHealth program to resolve allegations by the AG’s Office that it engaged in an illegal kickback relationship with a New Bedford-based clinical laboratory.
From <https://www.lowellsun.com/2023/03/13/burlington-lab-and-acton-owner-accused-of-drug-test-fraud/>