A Washington urgent care clinic has agreed to pay $2.8 million to resolve allegations it fraudulently overbilled Medicare and Medicaid for diagnostic tests.
What happened?
- Health First Urgent Care, which has locations in Richland and Pasco, Wash., fraudulently billed for polymerase chain reaction respiratory and urinary tract infection panel testing, according to a Sept. 24 Justice Department news release.
- The panel tests were a predetermined group of medical tests used to test for multiple pathogens from a single sample obtained from a patient.
- Health First Urgent Care allegedly improperly unbundled the panel test and billed for each individual test comprising the panel.
- The clinic also allegedly billed for panel tests that were more expensive and not medically necessary for certain patients, such as those presenting with symptoms of COVID-19.
