Office of the Attorney General
Attorney General Conway Announces Settlement with Ameritox for Paying Illegal Kickbacks to Doctors

Attorney General Jack Conway today announced that Kentucky will participate in a $16.3 million settlement with Ameritox Ltd. to resolve claims asserted by the United States Department of Justice, Kentucky and the other states participating in the settlement that it paid illegal kickbacks to doctors.

Ameritox, headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland, provides physicians with urine testing, monitoring and reporting services. In order to induce doctors to utilize Ameritox's urine testing services, each time a doctor submitted a urine test to Ameritox they were paid an illegal kickback of $10. To reward doctors who ordered large numbers of urine tests, Ameritox placed so-called "collectors" in their offices and paid these "collectors" illegal kickbacks to fill out the paperwork necessary to submit the urine samples to Ameritox for testing.

The Kentucky Medicaid program will receive a total of $434,319 from Ameritox, which represents more than three times what the Kentucky Medicaid program paid for Ameritox urine tests. Kentucky Medicaid will retain $131,888 of the settlement proceeds after reimbursing the federal government for its share of the settlement.

"I am pleased that this settlement allows us to recover funds for Kentucky taxpayers and a vital state program," General Conway said. "Drug companies that engage in illegal or fraudulent practices to sell their products will not be tolerated in Kentucky."

Since Attorney General Conway took office in January 2008, his Office of Medicaid Fraud and Abuse Control has recovered or been awarded more than $ 141 million for the state and federal Medicaid programs. These cases range from lawsuits and settlements against pharmaceutical companies to cases against individual providers.

The Attorney General's Tip Line for reporting allegations of Medicaid fraud is 1-877-228-7384.