Conspiracies to rip off the Medicare system are prevalent due to the vast amounts of money flowing through the program. On February 25, Sherif Khalil of Redondo Beach, California man was convicted by a federal jury in Detroit for stealing $4 million from the Medicare program.
Khalil conspired with others to generate orders for medically unnecessary toxicology screening tests for patients taking pain management medicine. Marketers were incentivized to induce doctors to order the high-reimbursing lab tests. Khalil and his company, Spectra Clinical Labs, took in over $4 million in unnecessary Medicare payments, which Khalil shared with his co-conspirators.
Khalil faces up to 20 years in jail when he is sentenced this summer.
