New Tampa clinic CEO to pay $185,000 for role in Medicare scheme

TAMPA — The CEO of a New Tampa bodyweight reduction and hormone substitute treatment clinic has agreed to pay a $185,000 settlement to the federal governing administration to take care of allegations that he took part in a kickback scheme crafted on false statements designed to Medicare and other federal packages.

Brett Markowitz, the founder and CEO of AgeRejuvenation, acquired payments as an incentive to direct individual blood samples to a Texas lab, in accordance to the U.S. Department of Justice. He was named as a receiver of the illegal kickbacks, alongside with ten Texas doctors who blended must shell out about $1.6 million to the federal govt and cooperate with ongoing litigation against other people involved in the plan.

“Health care providers partaking in kickback schemes undermine equally the public’s have faith in in health-related establishments and the money integrity of federal health treatment courses,” stated Miranda Bennett, unique agent in charge at the Health and fitness and Human Products and services Business office of Inspector General, in a statement. “Working with our law enforcement partners, our agency is committed to carefully investigating these allegations of fraud.”

Concerning Oct 2016 and February 2019, Markowitz’s clinic — then acknowledged as Tampa Rejuvenation — despatched blood samples and other lab do the job to The Blood Place, a lab linked with and controlled in section by True Overall health Diagnostics LLC, and by means of Categorical Mobile Labs, LLC, a business that Markowitz partly managed, the Justice Division said.

The payments have been disguised as a “processing and handling” fee of $25 to $35 billed for every sample. The rate was additional to the invoice for the lab get the job done, but federal officials reported Markowitz understood Correct Well being would pay back again some of all of the price to him “directly or indirectly, in income or in form.”

Accurate Health, which is centered in Frisco, Texas, then made statements centered on the inflated invoices to Medicare and other federal health and fitness treatment courses. Justice Section officials stated the scheme violated the two the Anti-Kickback Statute and the Stark Legislation, which forbids a hospital or laboratory from billing Medicare for sure products and services referred by doctors or others who have a monetary partnership with the hospital or laboratory.

AgeRejuvenation operates clinics in Brandon, Wesley Chapel, Westchase, South Tampa and Winter Park, in accordance to its web-site. Markowitz did not reply to 3 messages the Tampa Bay Periods remaining with workforce at his clinic and two e-mails trying to find comment.

The Far better Business enterprise Bureau data 13 issues filed against the company above a 2-calendar year period of time, which include fears about billing for repeated bloodwork.

The settlement is part of a much larger federal investigation into healthcare fraud. The Justice Office recently filed a criticism in a Texas federal court docket naming two laboratory CEOs, a person hospital CEO and many others as defendants in a related kickback plan that also concerned Accurate Well being and two other labs.

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Lab work from the plan was billed to Medicare, Medicaid and TRICARE and, in several situations, concerned tests that ended up not sensible and vital, the grievance states.