Lab owner who defrauded Medicare to forfeit $187 million, Ferrari

A Miami federal judge ordered a lab owner convicted of defrauding Medicare to forfeit more than $187 million worth of proceeds from the scam, including $30 million in cash, a 2018 Ferrari Spider and real estate, the U.S. Department of Justice said Wednesday.

The lab owner, Minal Patel of Atlanta, was sentenced in August to 27 years in prison for filing nearly $500 million in false claims to Medicare for sophisticated, and expensive, cancer genetic tests.

Medicare is the federally run program that provides health coverage to primarily older Americans.

The DOJ said Wednesday that the 44-year-old conspired with telemedicine companies, call centers and patient brokers to convince Medicare beneficiaries to take the genetic tests through his company LabSolutions.

Telemedicine doctors robo-signed prescriptions for the tests even though they did not evaluate the patients and often did not even speak to them, according to the DOJ.

Medicare paid out more than $187 million in false claims for the tests.

In addition to the Ferrari, which he bought for nearly $400,000, Patel also will forfeit a Land Rover Range Rover that he purchased for $215,000, according to court documents.