An Indian-American who was chief financial officer for a group of pain management clinics in central Maryland pleaded guilty Dec. 15 to receiving kickbacks for lab test referrals from a medical practice.
Vic Wadhwa, 38, of Frederick, MD, pleaded guilty to soliciting and receiving kickbacks in return for referrals at lab tests from a medical practice in 2011 and 2012. Wadhwa faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. U.S. District Judge Marvin J. Garbis has scheduled sentencing for April 2 next year.
According to his plea agreement, the group of pain management clinics Wadhwa managed as CFO required its patients to submit urine samples for testing in order to monitor the levels of pain medication or other narcotics in their bodies. The group’s clinics generated hundreds of urine samples each month, which were sent to an outside lab for testing. Between the time the kickback payments started in July 2011 and the end of the scheme in July 2012, the lab company paid the group of clinics a total of $1,376,540.85 in kickbacks. Out of this amount, Wadhwa received approximately $459,245.
It all began in March 2011, when Wadhwa and others at the group’s clinics decided to shift the group’s testing business to a laboratory testing company in New Jersey, after learning that the lab testing company was willing to pay a kickback for every urine sample that his group of clinics submitted for testing. Wadhwa negotiated the arrangement, whereby for every urine sample, the lab company would pay kickbacks equal to half of its profit.
The group of clinics submitted urine samples for testing to the lab company from approximately March 2011 to August 2012. During this time, the lab company received total reimbursement payments of $4,033.846.70 from private insurers, Medicare and the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program for lab tests ordered by the group of clinics.
The investigation is ongoing, a release from the FBI said.
United States Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein commended the FBI and HHS-OIG for their work in the investigation. Mr. Rosenstein thanked Assistant U.S. Attorney Jefferson M. Gray, who is prosecuting the case.