A Greenfield man who owned and operated a Milwaukee-based clinical laboratory has been sentenced to 15 months in jail for paying health care kickbacks, according to a press release from the United States Attorney’s Office.
Mohammed Kazim Ali, co-owner of
Noah Associates, was ordered to pay more than $2.2 million in restitution to Medicaid and Medicare, along with a $75,000 fine.
Ali co-owned Noah Associates with
Justin Hanson. Beginning in 2017, Ali and Hanson engaged in a three-year-long scheme to pay kickbacks to the owner of a Milwaukee substance use treatment clinic in exchange for referrals of Medicaid and Medicare patients for urine drug testing performed by Noah Associates.
Ali and Hanson paid over $400,000 in kickbacks to obtain the tests. The tests were not ordered by any physician and were not medically necessary for the treatment of patients. After one physician learned that his credentials were being used without his authorization to order the tests, the physician told Ali to stop.
Ali continued to have Noah Associates accept and bill the government for tests illegally ordered under that physician’s credentials for months. As a result of the scheme, Medicaid and Medicare paid Noah Associates over $2.2 million for the unnecessary tests. Ali personally received over $800,000 from Noah Associates during the scheme.
It is illegal for anyone to offer, pay, solicit or receive money in exchange for referring Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries to providers that participate in the program, or to arrange for certain services that may be paid for in part or whole by Medicare of Medicaid. Such payments are known as “kickbacks.”
Last spring, Ali and Hanson's co-conspirator in the health care kickback scheme
plead guilty to one count of conspiracy defraud the United States.
Gregory Owens, the owner and operator of the alcohol and drug abuse treatment clinic
GRO Family Services, was sentenced to between 30 and 37 months in jail.
In October 2017, Owens entered into an agreement with the owners of Noah Associates in Milwaukee to refer GRO’s clients to Noah. This included clients with Medicare and Wisconsin Medicaid coverage.
GRO clients were sent to Noah Assoc. for urine drug tests, with some of those tests being paid for by Medicare or Medicaid coverage. Noah Assoc. would then pay Owens for these client referrals.
Owens received approximately $18 for each urine sample sent to Noah from GRO. In total, he received $411,738 in illegal payments.
