TWO CHARGED IN URINE TEST KICKBACK SCHEME
Two men connected to a Delray Beach-area lab linked to kickbacks for urine tests for people in treatment and recovery for substance abuse have been arrested, a day after three men also were charged in the scheme.
Christopher Kristiansen, 27, and Alex Kane, 30, who list the same address in Delray Beach, were booked late Thursday at the Palm Beach Count y Jail. Each is charged with aiding in patient brokering and receiving patient-brokering kickbacks. Kane faces a third charge of conspiracy to commit patient brokering.
In court Friday, Kristiansen was ordered held in lieu of $12,000 bond and Kane on $18,000.
Mark Desimone, David Remland and Daniel Kandler were arrested late Wednesday on charges they paid John G. Rizzo for referring the urine tests to Impact Q Testing (“IQ”), a laboratory in Delray Beach next to Chapters Recovery, a treatment center Kandler also owns that previously was called Good Future Recovery. Desimone and Remland were business partners in IQ , the report said.
The arrests are part of the continuing investigations of the Palm Beach County Sober Home Task Force.
According to a Palm Beach County Sheriff ’s Office affidavit, Kristiansen and Kane worked for Safe Harbour Recovery Treatment Center, in the West Palm Beach area, and helped coordinate payments from IQ to a New Orleans lab. They allegedly received a combined total of about $183,000 in referral fees.
The report says the lab paid Rizzo some $626,260 between September 2016 and January 2017. Rizzo’s attorney said he has not been charged in connection with the task force.
Desimone, 62, of Boca Raton and Kandler, 42, of suburban Delray Beach each is charged with 14 counts of fraud/patient brokering. Remland, 53, of Boca Raton is charged with two counts.
Kandler, Desimone and Rem land also had been arrested in 2017, Kandler on 98 counts of patient brokering and Remland and Desimone each on five counts. Police reports say Kandler — along with co-owners Remland and Desimone — made payments for urine samples from addicts at various treatment centers.
The urine of drug addicts who have insurance is worth millions of dollars to the operators of labs, so ber homes and treatment centers. A Palm Beach Post investigation found that insurance companies often are billed as much as $5,000 for a single urine drug screen. Although insurance companies pay only a portion of that, between $1,500 and $2,000, with addicts tested three or more times a week, the profits add up fast.