A Georgia man was sentenced to 46 months in prison and ordered to pay more than $7.2 million in restitution for a scheme involving illegal physician kickbacks to get Medicare beneficiaries to accept medically unnecessary genetic tests, the Justice Department said in a Dec. 2 news release.
What happened?
- Patrick Moore, of Peach Tree, Ga., directed a network of recruiters to target beneficiaries and collect their insurance info, DNA samples and physicians’ orders, then funneled these to labs. To hide per-referral kickbacks, he used sham invoices listing fake hourly work, violating the Anti-Kickback Statute.
- He received about $4.3 million in kickbacks, while labs tied to the scheme billed Medicare roughly $24 million and were paid about $7.2 million for the unnecessary tests.
- He pleaded guilty in May 2025 to conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and to pay/receive illegal kickbacks.
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