By Frank Main
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Privy Health employees visited senior centers, churches
and synagogues to convince people to provide DNA swabs taken from their
mouths, according to prosecutors.
The donors were told the swabs would be tested for
genetic markers to help determine their chances of getting cancer. Some
were offered $75 gift cards for the swabs.
Prosecutors say the tests were part of a scam targeting
Medicare, the federal health insurance program for seniors and the
disabled. They say the DNA scam exploited elderly people’s curiosity
about genetic science and their fears of cancer.
Kyle McLean, who ran Privy Health, is awaiting sentencing
for his role in the scheme after pleading guilty earlier this year to
conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud.
According to court records, McLean previously had been
sentenced, in 2014, to three years in the Illinois state prisons for
forging the names of other real estate appraisers on documents used in
mortgage transactions. His appraiser’s license also was revoked.
In the Medicare case, McLean, 36, of Arlington Heights,
and four out-of-state men are charged with defrauding Medicare out of
more than $4.6 million.
Efforts to reach McLean’s attorney for comment were unsuccessful.
The investigation resulted in the arrests last year of 35
people nationwide, and more than $2.1 billion in Medicare fraud was
identified, according to the Justice Department.
In one of the biggest cases resulting from the
investigation, a man in Georgia has been charged with defrauding
Medicare of $154 million through testing labs he owned. Federal
prosecutors in Florida, where he’s charged, have said they’ll try to
recover that money — along with the man’s red Ferrari 388 Spider.
In the case involving McLean, prosecutors say a Florida
physician whose title was medical director of Privy Health submitted
fake information so Medicare would pay for the DNA tests. They say Dr.
Matthew Ellis told Medicare he was ordering the tests for his
“patients.” But he never met the people who provided the samples and
signed paperwork falsely indicating they had personal or family
histories of cancer, authorities say.
Medicare paid the labs for the tests, which cost more
than $6,000 apiece. The testing labs shared some of the money they
received from Medicare with McLean, Ellis and the other defendants,
according to federal authorities.
Since mid-2018, Privy Health received $789,000 in
kickbacks, McLean got $87,000 directly, and another company tied to
McLean got $32,000, prosecutors say.
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According to prosecutors, the people who agreed to give DNA samples frequently weren’t even given the results of their tests.
“Several months I went in and did the testing and I was
promised a $75 Visa gift card, which I still have not received,” wrote
one woman who reviewed Privy Health on a social-media site in 2018.
“Nothing but lies!”
In February, the Better Business Bureau revoked the company’s accreditation.
The federal charges against McLean and the other
defendants were filed in New Jersey. One of Ellis’ supposed patients was
living in New Jersey, and Ellis wasn’t licensed to practice medicine
there, prosecutors said.
One other man charged in the case has pleaded guilty. Charges are pending against Ellis and two other men.
According to Florida health licensing authorities, Ellis
has an active medical license with no disciplinary action or public
complaints on his record.
He couldn’t be reached for comment.
Full Article & Source:
Arlington Heights firm used DNA from elderly fearing cancer in Medicare fraud, feds say
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