National Lab Millennium Settles Urine Drug Testing Fraud Case

Contact: J. Marc Vezina and Monica P. Navarro
Date: October 19, 2015

Vezina Law Group announced today a $227 million settlement of a False Claims Act lawsuit between its client Omni Healthcare Inc., et al (“Relator”), Defendant Millennium Health, LLC (formerly, Millennium Laboratories, Inc.) (“Millennium”), and the United States of America, acting through the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts and on behalf of the Office of Inspector General (“HHS-OIG”) of the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) (collectively, the “United States”), among other parties.

Millennium is a lab which markets and performs laboratory testing services, including urine drug testing (“UDT”), for healthcare providers nationwide, including Relator, a healthcare provider in Melbourne, Florida which discovered and exposed the fraud that is the subject of the settlement. The settlement resolves allegations that Millennium violated the federal FCA and its State of Florida counter-part by billing federal and state healthcare programs for excessive and unnecessary UDT services and by billing for UDT services that were referred in violation of the Stark Law, 42 U.S.C. § 1395nn (“Stark”), and the Anti-Kickback Statute, 42 U.S.C. § 1320a-7b, et seq. (“AKS”).

Relator’s lawsuit was originally filed in 2012 in Manhattan and then transferred in 2013 in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, captioned United States ex rel. Omni Healthcare Inc., et al. v. Millennium Laboratories, Inc. No.13-cv-10825, pursuant to the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act, 31 U.S.C. § 3730(b) (“FCA”). The False Claims Act allows private persons with knowledge of fraud against a government program to file lawsuits on the government’s behalf.  If the case is successful, the private plaintiffs, known as “relators,” are entitled to a percentage of the government’s recovery. The False Claims Act provides for recovery of treble (triple) the single damages incurred by the government as a result of the fraud, as well as civil monetary penalties of between $5,500 and $11,000 per false claim submitted and statutory attorney fees. In this case, Relators will receive 15% of the recovery.

Relators were represented by J. Marc Vezina and Monica P. Navarro, partners at Vezina Law, PLC, a member of the Vezina Law Group with offices in Birmingham, Michigan and New Orleans, Louisiana. The United States was represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Abraham R. George and George B. Henderson, II, of the District of Massachusetts, as well as Douglas J. Rosenthal and Augustine M. Ripa of the Commercial Litigation Branch of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Vezina Law Group is a full-service law firm with hundreds of millions of dollars in False Claims Act/Qui Tam recoveries. www.vezinalaw.com