WASHINGTON, Nov. 21 -- A major clinical laboratory based in Burlington, N.C., has agreed to pay $182 million to settle allegations it charged medically unnecessary lab tests to federal and state health care programs, the Justice Department said Thursday. The department said the settlement with Laboratory Corp. of America Holdings, better known LabCorp, is the third largest health care care settlement ever. Immediately before the announcement of the settlement, the San Diego Regional Laboratory of Allied Clinical Laboratories Inc., now owned by LabCorp, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Greensboro, N.C., of submitting a false claim to Medicare and to the California Medicaid program. A federal judge accepted the plea and imposed a $5 million criminal fine on Allied, the Justice Department said, a sum in addition to the $182 million agreed to by its parent LabCorp. The civil case against LabCorp involved U.S. attorneys' offices in North Carolina, California, New York, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Washington, D.C. It also involved investigation by the FBI, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Defense Department and North Carolina officials. 'Today's settlement is another landmark in the fight against health care fraud,' San Diego U.S. Attorney Alan Bersin said in a statement. New York City U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White called the settlement 'another significant step toward eradicating billions of dollars of fraud that permeates our nations' health care system each year.' Due to a series of mergers and acquisitions, Allied, Roche Biomedical Laboratories and National Health Laboratories now constitute a single entity known as LabCorp.
Assistant Attorney General Frank Hunger said LabCorp's civil settlement settles allegations that Allied, Roche and NHL submitted false claims involving unnecessary tests to Medicare, the Railroad Retirement Board, the Civilian Health and Medical Program of the Uniformed Services, or CHAMPUS, the Office of Personnel Management as well as 44 separate state Medicaid programs.
