A Haverhill laboratory and its Methuen president were among those charged Monday in connection with alleged Medicaid fraud, money laundering and kickbacks involving urine drug tests that resulted in more than $2 million in false billing.
Attorney General Maura Healey said Tuesday that Lab USA, with an operation in the rear of 108 Merrimack St., in downtown Haverhill, and 64-year-old Mohammad F. Afreedi of Methuen, were charged under a state law related to “kickbacks, bribery or rebates” and conspiracy.
Lab USA was among four independent clinical laboratories, their owners, two laboratory marketing companies and a Massachusetts physician who were indicted by a statewide grand jury.
Besides Lab USA, Summit Diagnostics of Salem, N.H., and its 62-year-old founder and CEO George Powell of Londonderry, N.H., were each charged with two counts of kickbacks, bribery or rebate” and conspiracy.
They will be arraigned later in Suffolk Superior Court.
Healey’s office said the indictments are all connected with Vipin Adhlakha, and three independent clinical laboratories he has owned—Alpha Labs, Aria Diagnostics and Preferred Laboratory, all of Westfield, Ind. They are charged with submitting claims to MassHealth for urine drug testing.
It is alleged Adhlakha and his companies engaged in kickback relationships with marketing companies OSA Exports and Summit Diagnostics to increase the number of urine drug tests referred to his laboratories in exchange for a percentage of collected insurance reimbursements in violation of the Massachusetts anti-kickback statute. The attorney general’s office also alleges Adhlakha and his companies engaged in a separate kickback relationship with Lab USA, which involved the referral of urine samples for testing in exchange for a percentage of collected insurance reimbursements.
He is also charged with conspiring with Dr. Darrolyn McCarroll-Lindsay of Oak Bluffs to conduct urine drug testing for residential sobriety monitoring purposes at Massachusetts sober homes. Under state regulations, laboratories may not bill MassHealth for tests performed at sober homes and shelters for residential monitoring purposes because such tests are not medically necessary.