York Pain Clinic Owner: Repeated Warnings, Unchanged Urine Testing

The York pain clinic owner’s urine testing fraud case included $900,000 paid toward a civil settlement with the United States in 2022. The Justice Department’s announcement in the owner’s criminal case describes unnecessary tests for chronic-opioid patients at Pain Medicine of York, also known as All Better Wellness.

The owner agreed to multiple urine tests for every patient at every visit, learned repeatedly that the billing was unlawful, and kept the practice going. Patients supplied the specimens, the clinic collected the revenue, and taxpayers paid for testing that did not reflect individual care.

The Clinic Ordered the Tests and Kept the Proceeds

According to the Justice Department’s April 24, 2025 announcement in the owner’s criminal case, Pain Medicine of York sent urine tests to its own laboratory whenever possible, keeping the proceeds inside the practice. The owner acquired the original York location in 2014 and took control of additional medical practices through 2018, including clinics previously run by the physician who advised him on clinical decisions.

In 2016, that physician advised the owner to order multiple urine drug tests for each patient at every office visit. The owner agreed. The department said he understood that the practice did not provide the individualized care Medicare required.

The announcement says the practice billed Medicare more than $10 million for urine tests from mid-2017 through the end of 2019, and Medicare paid more than $4 million for those tests. Pennsylvania’s Medicaid program also received urine-testing bills during that period, and the department described unnecessary tests billed to private insurers as well.

The earlier criminal information, as described in the department’s charging announcement, alleged the same connection between the in-house laboratory and the proceeds. A decision made in the clinic generated a test in the clinic’s laboratory and a payment back to the clinic. The person controlling the practice had an interest in keeping all of it moving.

Why Urine Drug Testing Fit the Business

Urine drug testing gives a pain practice information about prescribed medication use and other substances a patient may be taking. The 2014 Pain Physician paper Ethical Perspectives on Urine Drug Screening for Pain Physicians describes its use both to monitor adherence to a medication regimen and to detect illicit or non-prescribed drugs. That clinical purpose puts testing directly into the work of a practice treating chronic-opioid patients.

Presumptive testing reports whether drugs or drug classes appear to be present. Definitive testing identifies particular drugs and metabolites and can report their concentrations.

The money was substantial across the specialty. In a February 2023 audit, the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General reported approximately $3 billion in Medicare Part B payments for definitive drug testing from 2016 through 2020. Most of those services went to patients receiving pain-management treatment.

At Pain Medicine of York, the Justice Department’s announcement in the owner’s criminal case describes a healthcare practice that could turn its own ordering policy into its own laboratory revenue. Medicare payments for unnecessary tests put public money into that arrangement.

When Are Toxicology Tests Unnecessary?

The Justice Department’s announcement in the owner’s criminal case describes unnecessary toxicology tests ordered for every patient at every visit without individualized care. It says the owner repeatedly received information that the urine-testing billing practices were unlawful. He nevertheless kept the practice in place until the clinics shut down in late 2019.

The clinical literature explains why the individual decision matters. The 2021 Journal of Family Practice review Urine Drug Screening: A Guide to Monitoring Tx With Controlled Substances describes a testing frequency based on ongoing assessment of the patient’s risk, history and results. It also identifies large, expensive panels, excessive frequency and unnecessary confirmation of positive tests as ways a financial interest in testing can lead to abuse.

A result needs a clinical interpretation, too. The Pain Physician paper explains that timing, the test method and cross-reactivity can affect what a urine screen shows. The Journal of Family Practice review puts the interpretive problem plainly:

The clinical work lies in choosing a useful test and understanding its result. A standing instruction to keep ordering tests supplies the laboratory with specimens, but the patient’s needs still have to drive the decision. At the York practice, the department described an owner who knew the testing lacked that individual basis and left the instructions unchanged.

Payroll Was Another Route to the Money

The Justice Department’s announcement in the owner’s criminal case also traced testing proceeds into payments benefiting the owner, the advising physician, the physician’s wife and the practice’s former chief executive. It described a payroll arrangement intended to make payments to the physician’s wife appear to compensate legitimate work.

The owner and the physician agreed that she would periodically email summaries and excerpts of medical literature. She received a large salary despite not having practiced medicine in years. A practice employee also went to her home weekly to do yardwork and other household tasks.

Other payments went through different channels. The department described a vehicle leased for the physician’s wife, contributions to their children’s college savings accounts and payments toward personal loans.

Those details matter to an employee who sees the accounts rather than the treatment room. Payroll, a vehicle lease and a household bill can show different ways the same people benefited from the testing proceeds.

The Civil Payment and the Criminal Admissions

The Justice Department reported the owner’s civil payment separately from his guilty plea. The announcement says he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and theft of public money. It also says he admitted agreeing with others to defraud Medicare through medically unnecessary urine drug tests at clinics he controlled.

The civil payment came after the clinics had closed: the department reported that the practice stopped operating in November 2019 after search warrants were executed and it could no longer retain medical providers to see patients.

The announcement in the owner’s criminal case follows responsibility through the practice: the physician proposed the testing policy, the owner agreed to it, the laboratory performed the tests and insurers received the bills. That connection matters to a whistleblower whose job exposes only one part of the operation.

What Evidence Is Needed to Prove Fraud?

For unnecessary urine-testing claims, the evidence connects the patient’s clinical need and the ordering decision to the test performed, the claim submitted and the payment received. The York practice’s case makes the knowledge question concrete because the announcement in the owner’s criminal case describes repeated warnings followed by a decision to continue.

A clinic employee may know who issued the testing instructions and who could change them. Laboratory staff may know which tests ran on a specimen. Billing staff may see the claims and payments, while someone in payroll or accounts payable may see where the proceeds went. We work with you to connect the part you know to the decisions behind the claims.

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

You Saw Who Kept the Testing Going

If you saw routine urine testing continue after staff questioned it, or watched the proceeds move through the practice’s accounts, talk with our whistleblower experts. We build the case with you and bring in laboratory fraud whistleblower lawyers who understand unnecessary testing and the decisions behind the bills. We stay beside you through every step of building your strongest laboratory whistleblower case.