Federal prosecutors say that under Ron Elfenbein’s direction, clinics billed Medicare and other insurers for coronavirus tests in combination with “more lucrative, but medically unnecessary” services, according to a grand jury indictment. These services “were purportedly of a 30-minute or longer duration, or involving moderate or high levels of medical decision-making, but did not in fact occur as represented,” the indictment said. The indictment alleges Elfenbein knew many patients were being seen for less than five minutes but directed staffers to bill for the higher-level services anyway, saying they were “the ‘bread and butter’ of how we get paid.” Read a story from The Washington Post.
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