Urine Testing Compliance Challenges: Protect Your Organization From Million-Dollar Settlements

Urine drug testing can be an essential medical service because understanding the kinds of substances patients take into their bodies is critical for planning treatments. However, some providers have been abusing the use of urine drug testing, and because of that, we’ve seen an increase in enforcement in the area of urine drug testing.

Recent enforcement settlements are in the millions.

“Bluewater Toxicology, LLC, a clinical laboratory in Mount Washington, Ky., has agreed to pay $1,252,403.40 to resolve civil allegations that it violated the False Claims Act. According to the settlement agreement, the United States alleged three issues relating to claims for urine drug testing services that Bluewater submitted to Medicare, Kentucky Medicaid, Indiana Medicaid, TRICARE, and CHAMPVA.” According to the Justice.gov website.  In October of 2021, the Justice Department revealed that Nevada-based clinical laboratory, MD Labs, and two of its owners and co-founders will pay between $11.6 million and $16 million to resolve allegations that they billed federal programs for medically unnecessary urine drug testing.

Two Texas physicians, Robert Wills and Brannon Frank, have agreed to pay $3.9 million to resolve allegations that they violated the False Claims Act by knowingly billing Medicare, Medicaid, and TRICARE for medically unnecessary urine drug testing.

Protect your organization from a million-dollar settlement. Join our upcoming webinar, “Urine & Drug Testing Compliance Concerns,” to learn about recent enforcement cases involving urine drug testing, urine drug testing areas you might want to consider, what to add to your audit or monitoring plan, ways compliance programs mitigate urine drug testing risks.