LSA: The Business Behind Confirmation Referrals

Laboratory Services of America, known as LSA, received confirmation-testing business through cash payments to the operator of American Toxicology Labs. The Justice Department’s May 2022 announcement of the criminal case reported that LSA’s majority owner had pleaded guilty that January to making false representations for payments under federal health care programs.

Cash for the Next Laboratory’s Work

According to the court documents described in the announcement, the arrangement began in January 2015. American Toxicology Labs’ operator agreed to send all of its tested urine samples to LSA for confirmation testing. In return, LSA’s majority owner sent cash kickbacks to the operator’s personal checking account.

Between March 2015 and September 2016, LSA received more than $750,000 from Medicare, Virginia Medicaid, Kentucky Medicaid and TennCare for confirmation testing connected to the scheme. That was payment for testing, not a civil settlement or whistleblower recovery.

The referral source already had the specimen. The payment bought the choice of where it went next. For someone handling send-out testing or account payments, the useful connection is between that referral decision and the money returning to the person who controlled it. The American Toxicology Labs case tells the referring side of the arrangement.

What a Laboratory Insider Can Connect

The useful account follows the specimen through the business. The clinician’s order explains the requested testing. The laboratory’s records show what was performed. The claim shows what was billed, while the referral agreement and payment records explain the commercial relationship around that work.

Billing personnel, phlebotomists, technical directors, medical assistants and office managers see different portions of that sequence. A billing employee may recognize a mismatch between the order and the claim. Someone handling specimens may know which work went elsewhere. A person involved in referral payments may know why a particular account kept receiving money. We bring those perspectives together around the testing and the payment.

The patient supplies the specimen but generally does not choose the laboratory. The program paying the claim does not have the treating record when the bill arrives. An insider who sees how the work was directed brings a view neither of them has.

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

You Know Why the Samples Went There

If you handled confirmation referrals or payments to the people sending them, tell our whistleblower experts how the arrangement worked. We build your strongest laboratory kickback whistleblower case with you and bring in clinical-laboratory whistleblower lawyers who understand toxicology orders and referral payments. We bring the judgment and partnership to pursue what you saw inside the business.