A Roswell man has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to pay healthcare kickbacks.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Andrew “Drew” Maloney, 57, owned Capstone Diagnostics of Atlanta and agreed to pay approximately $14.3 million to resolve allegations that they violated the Anti-Kickback Statute by paying high-volume commissions to independent contractor sales representatives to arrange for or recommend medically unnecessary urine drug tests and respiratory pathogen panels.
According to information presented in court, Capstone entered into an arrangement between August 2017 and December 2018 with a program operating as Do It 4 the Hood (D4H), which claimed to provide after-school mentoring services to at-risk teenagers in Georgia.
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Once enrolled, participants were required to submit to frequent drug tests.
According to the U.S. District Attorney, Maloney was aware that participants needed the tests to participate in the program and that many of the participants were covered by Medicaid.
Capstone, with Maloney’s approval, paid the operators of D4H a percentage of Medicaid reimbursements for urine samples submitted for testing.
Overall, Capstone submitted over $1 million in claims, causing Georgia Medicaid to pay out at least $400,000 in claims related to fraudulent drug testing.
Four other people also pleaded guilty in connection with the fraudulent drug testing scheme.
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“Unfortunately, Capstone and Maloney are hardly alone, as we have witnessed some clinical laboratories and their owners across the country engage in unscrupulous kickback and billing schemes that caused incalculable harm to Medicare,” U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan said. “We are committed to aggressively investigating and prosecuting those who defraud valuable government programs designed to benefit our most vulnerable citizens.”
Maloney’s sentencing is scheduled for May 29, 2024.
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