Laboratory Research Study Kickbacks: When the Study Is a Referral Pretext

Laboratory research study kickbacks disguise payments for test referrals as compensation for collecting clinical data. If you coordinate a study, order its tests or sell the laboratory’s services, you may see the connection that the research agreement leaves out.

Do Doctors Get Kickbacks for Ordering Tests?

Yes, according to the whistleblower allegations in the Primex and NEXT cases: doctors received payments for test orders disguised as study fees, consulting fees or medical-director fees. The Primex Clinical Laboratories case shows how the research arrangement could reach the practice through both compensation and staffing.

Primex supplied clinical diagnostic testing, including pharmacogenetic testing. DNA Stat was a laboratory management company employing sales representatives and licensed pharmacists. The companies entered into a services agreement for pharmacogenetic testing. Former DNA Stat sales representatives brought the whistleblower case, alleging that kickbacks caused Primex to submit false Medicare claims.

The Justice Department described their allegations: physicians appeared to receive money for clinical study data but actually received it for referring patients for pharmacogenetic testing. The lawsuit also alleged that in-office medical technicians performed study work to induce orders, and that the tests were medically unnecessary.

In January 2018, Primex agreed to pay $3,500,000. The Justice Department specified that its settlement resolved allegations concerning in-office technicians, improper sales and services agreements, and medically unnecessary pharmacogenetic tests. DNA Stat’s chief executive and owner separately agreed to pay $270,000, resolving all allegations against him in the lawsuit.

What the Study Was Supposed to Buy

The study agreement’s promised work is the starting point for examining a research payment. We compare that promise with the data collected, the physician’s actual duties and the calculation used to pay the physician.

A physician agreement may describe duties that the coordinator handles in practice. A payment schedule may count tests while the study records count completed forms. If that is the arrangement you know, we examine the difference with you. The point is to identify the work purchased and the person who performed it, then connect both to the orders.

Laboratory Research Registry Payments Tied to Test Orders

Laboratory research registry payments tied to test orders bring the data collection and the referral relationship into the same inquiry. We compare the information the registry promises to collect with its completed entries and the compensation paid to the referring practice.

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General issued a laboratory-payments alert on June 25, 2014 describing laboratories establishing or maintaining databases, directly or through agents, purportedly to collect patient demographics, presentation, diagnosis, treatment and outcomes. The patients had undergone, or might undergo, tests offered by those laboratories. The Inspector General described the tests as typically specialized, expensive and paid for by federal health care programs.

That description puts the laboratory on both sides of the arrangement: it wants information about the test and business for the test. The registry’s title tells us far less than what the practice contributed and why it was paid.

How a Research Fee Connects to Repeated Test Orders

A lab clinical research fee paid for each genetic test ordered makes the payment formula central to the inquiry. We examine whether the fee follows completed research duties, the number of orders or the laboratory’s testing revenue. In the Primex case, the government contended that DNA Stat’s agreements with the laboratory and its sales representatives took the volume and value of physician referrals into account when calculating compensation.

For someone who worked in sales, those agreements can explain the pressure behind the orders. For someone in the practice, the technician’s daily work can explain what the laboratory supplied to keep that relationship going. We connect the test orders and research payments with the insiders who understand both sides.

Paid for Access to Patients

A separate whistleblower complaint involving UTC Laboratories alleged that physicians received payments for access to their patients while performing none of the screening or approval work. The complaint alleges:

The complaint also reproduced an internal email promising physician research payments for completed electronic case-report forms. Another quoted email described a change in the consent process: a provider was to discuss the test and research with the patient before consent, whereas collectors had previously discussed those subjects.

The same complaint alleged that collectors were directed to falsify medication histories so patients would qualify for DNA testing. At one practice, it alleged, a medical assistant added medications that patients had neither been prescribed nor taken. The allegation went beyond paying for work that a physician never did. It described patient information being changed to justify the testing.

In October 2019, the Justice Department announced a $42.6 million civil settlement with UTC Laboratories and three principals. The resolution included the case behind this complaint.

Why the Genetic Test Order Matters

Genetic testing accounts for a much larger share of Medicare laboratory spending than of test volume. In its report on laboratory spending in 2024, the Inspector General found that genetic tests represented 5% of laboratory tests paid under Part B and 43% of Part B laboratory spending. That category includes tests of genetic material from pathogens as well as humans.

The commercial significance is the value of the testing a physician can direct to a laboratory. A research arrangement sits beside that ordering decision. The same physician may be asked to contribute study data and send the patients whose testing produces the laboratory’s revenue.

The Same Referral Payment Under Other Names

The research label has close parallels in consulting fees and free supplies. Each arrangement gives an insider a different view of how financial incentives can shape healthcare decisions.

NEXT Molecular Analytics agreed in December 2025 to pay at least $758,000 to resolve False Claims Act allegations involving doctors and marketers. The government alleged that consulting and medical-director fees induced doctors to order its tests, while commissions based on referral volume and value went to independent contractor marketers. NEXT allegedly billed Medicare, Medicaid and TRICARE despite knowing about the kickbacks. Different recipients and different payment labels allegedly served the same flow of tests.

Millennium Health’s free specimen-cup arrangement shows how the benefit can arrive as a useful item. The government alleged that Millennium supplied free point-of-care urine drug test cups on the express condition that physicians return the specimens for additional testing. For a study-payment inquiry, the parallel is the condition attached to the benefit: what testing did the practice have to send back?

What Evidence Is Needed to Prove Fraud?

The useful evidence connects the promised research work, the work performed, the test orders, the claims and the payments. Those records sit in different hands, and connecting them is the work we do with the physician, coordinator or laboratory employee who knows how the arrangement operated.

You may know the payment side from sales or finance, or the study side from the practice. A study coordinator’s knowledge of who entered the data and why can reach both the payment arrangement and the Medicare claim.

A whistleblower case under the False Claims Act can pay 15% to 30% of what the government recovers.

When You Know What the Study Paid For

If you know how study fees, staff or research forms were used to secure laboratory orders, speak to our whistleblower experts about your strongest laboratory whistleblower case. We stay beside you throughout the case, connect the promised research with the actual work and the money, and bring in laboratory fraud whistleblower lawyers who understand clinical research payments.