Back in 2021, eight people were arrested for their involvement in a multimillion-dollar billing scheme centered on what the fraudsters self-described as a “diagnostic reference laboratory.” Turns out the only subject coming from this laboratory was how to commit Medicare and Medicaid fraud.
It started with Fadewl Alshalabi, owner of Crestar Labs, a genetic testing laboratory, and Samuel Harris, owner of Flojo Recruiting, a Utah based marketing company. Harris concocted a scheme targeting the elderly and low-income patients for medical tests that were not requested nor necessary. And he contracted Harris to drum up the business. Harris ordered his marketers, who were not health care professionals by the way, to obtain swabs of DNA from patients at senior centers, low-income housing, and various door-to-door marketing campaigns. We have come a long way from door-to-door vacuum salesmen! Instead of a commission on vacuums sold, the recruiters were paid a kickback by Harris for every DNA test obtained.
These tests were then approved by purported telemedicine doctors who were paid kickbacks by Alshalabi in exchange for signing off on the laboratory orders sent to his company, Crestar Labs. Crestar Labs send to Medicare and Medicaid over $150 million in fraudulent claims which resulted in over $86 million in fraudulent Medicaid proceeds.
On November 11, 2024, Alshalabi and Harris were found guilty of Medicare and Medicaid fraud.
Excellent job by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Medicaid Fraud Control Unit in this case.
Today’s Fraud of The Day is based on article “Spring Hill Genetic Testing Lab Owner Guilty in Health Care Conspiracy” published by the Williamson Scene on November 11, 2024
Two men were found guilty in a multi-million dollar, multi-state Medicare and Medicaid fraud scheme that involved a Spring Hill lab. Owner and chief executive officer of Spring Hill’s now-defunct Crestar Labs, Fadel Alshalabi, has been found guilty of conspiracy to violate and violations of the Anti-Kickback Statute and money laundering following a seven-week federal trial, according to Thomas J. Jaworski, acting United States attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee.
As previously reported, 57-year-old Alshalabi, of Waxhaw, North Carolina, was among eight people who were arrested in 2021, for their involvement in a fraudulent $86 million Medicare billing scheme centered on the self-described “diagnostic reference laboratory.”
