One of the special fraud alerts issued by the Office of Inspector General (OIG) is the Special Fraud Alert: Laboratory Payments to Referring Physicians (June 25, 2014). The alert addressed the concern that clinical laboratories have been providing referring physicians with a wide range of payments to increase their referrals.Here's a specific case related to this fraud alert:In May 2015, Health Diagnostics Laboratory (HDL), along with Singulex, agreed to pay $48.5 million to resolve allegations that the companies paid kickbacks to physicians to induce them to refer patients to HDL. The kickbacks were in the form of payments for purported “process and handling” fees. The U.S. Department of Justice alleged that these payments violated the Anti-Kickback Statute and the False Claims Act.Later that same year, the DOJ filed a lawsuit against HDL’s former CEO and former COO, alleging that they orchestrated a scheme that resulted in millions of dollars of payments to physicians and increased billings to Medicare and other health insurance programs.