LOS ANGELES - California's biggest provider of medical lab testing has agreed to repay the state $241 million for more than 15 years of overcharges to Medi-Cal, the state attorney general's office said Thursday.
The settlement from Quest Diagnostics Inc. is the result of a 2005 lawsuit brought by a whistleblower who alleged the labs systematically overcharged patients of Medi-Cal, the state's Medicaid program for the poor.
The lawsuit also claimed Quest gave illegal kickbacks to doctors, hospitals and clinics that referred Medi-Cal patients and charged Medi-Cal up to six times more than other customers for tests.
"Medi-Cal providers and others who seek to cheat the state through false claims and illegal kickbacks should know that my office is watching and will prosecute," Attorney General Kamala Harris said in a written statement.
The settlement is the largest ever recovered under California's False Claims Act, according to Harris' office.
Monday, May 23, 2011
Quest Diagnostics to pay $241M for overcharges - CNBC
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The last 15 years were very interesting in southern California with labs as it was around 5-6 years ago or so that Quest purchased Uni-lab who had a huge presence here and they competed against them until Quest finally bough them so some of this may go back to those times.
I was still writing my medical records program yeas back and it too forever to combine the coding for the 2 labs and made it difficult for me to import the lab results in for both Uni-Lab and Quest until they finally finished the project and rebranded all the facilities.
Again before Quest purchased Uni-Lab there was some pretty heated competition going on here to get their foot in the door and secure business away from Uni-Lab.
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