Federal agents raid OKC medical lab

Agents with the FBI and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General were among those who executed search warrants at Performance Laboratories LLC, 500 N Walker.

The lab’s owner, Khalid Satary, is accused in a federal charge of soliciting medically unnecessary cancer genetic tests from Medicare beneficiaries through telemarketing and “health fairs,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Satary, 47, of Suwanee, Georgia, and his co-conspirators, through companies they controlled, paid telemarketers illegal kickbacks and bribes in exchange for doctors’ orders and medically unnecessary tests, the department reported.

Performance Laboratories and labs in Georgia and Louisiana owned by Satary collectively billed Medicare for more than $547 million, the department reported.

Thirty five people, including nine doctors, are accused of billing Medicare more than $2.1 billion for the fraudulent tests in what the justice department called “one of the largest health care fraud schemes ever charged.”

“The defendants allegedly targeted elderly, disabled and other vulnerable consumers, luring them into this fraudulent scheme that affected victims nationwide and generated losses in excess of $1 billion dollars which spanned multiple jurisdictions, said Peter G. Strasser, a U.S. attorney in Louisiana.

Performance Laboratories, according to the company’s website, is an independent laboratory that provides “comprehensive clinical quantitative urine drug testing, medication monitoring, and support.”