A Missouri man pleaded guilty today to orchestrating a scheme to defraud Medicare by unlawfully billing millions of dollars in claims for cancer genetic testing and cardiovascular genetic testing.
According to court documents, Jamie P. McNamara, 49, of Kansas City, operated several laboratories in Louisiana and Texas, which obtained doctors’ orders for genetic testing from telemarketers and call centers that used aggressive telemarketing campaigns to induce Medicare beneficiaries to agree to receive genetic testing. Orders for genetic testing were signed by purported telemedicine doctors who were not the beneficiaries’ treating physicians, did not perform consultations with the beneficiaries, and did not follow up with the beneficiaries after the testing was performed. To obtain the orders, McNamara paid illegal kickbacks and bribes, which he disguised through sham contracts. In furtherance of the scheme, he also shifted the billing between his laboratories to evade scrutiny from Medicare and law enforcement and concealed his ownership and control of the laboratories by falsely listing the names of his family members as owners and company representatives on Medicare and other documents. In approximately one and a half years, the laboratories operated by McNamara submitted over $174 million in claims to Medicare for genetic testing and received over $55 million in reimbursements. The government previously seized several luxury vehicles and over $7 million in bank accounts.
“The defendant used illegal payments and lies to fraudulently bill Medicare over $174 million,” said Matthew R. Galeotti, Head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “Health care fraud harms patients, drains government resources, and violates the public trust. The Criminal Division is fully committed to uncovering and aggressively prosecuting these schemes.”
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