NASHVILLE (AP) — A Tennessee health lab owner has been charged with orchestrating a fake Medicare billing scheme, a federal prosecutor announced.
Fadel Alshalabi, 53, of Waxhaw, North Carolina, was charged in a criminal complaint with aiding and abetting and violating an anti-kickback statute, acting U.S. Attorney Mary Jane Stewart said in a news release Tuesday.
The statement said Alshalabi is the owner and CEO of Spring Hill-based Crestar Labs, which billed Medicare about $86 million for genetic testing from 2017 to 2021 and was paid nearly $14 million for those claims.
According to the complaint, Alshalabi engaged in a scheme to pay kickbacks in exchange for the solicitation of genetic tests from Medicare beneficiaries through mouth swabs. Telemedicine doctors who did not treat the patients approved the tests.
It wasn't known whether Alshalabi has an attorney who could comment on the charges, which carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison upon conviction.