BURBANK, Calif., April 22 /PRNewswire/ -- Health Line Clinical Laboratories, Inc., the largest and fastest-growing privately-held provider of clinical laboratory services in California, today announced that it had reached an agreement with the United States Department of Justice, agencies of the State of California and two HLC sales employees who had worked for the company for less than six months more than six years ago, to settle civil allegations that HLC had improperly incorporated medical tests that the Plaintiffs' alleged were medically unnecessary into certain panels, or groups of test procedures, that could be ordered simultaneously. HLC had strongly opposed those allegations and through this settlement admits no liability therein.
"While HLC felt that since a series of administrative actions, including Medicare Hearings on exactly these same issues, had been resolved in our favor finding that these tests had been properly ordered, reported, billed and reimbursed, would clearly demonstrate our compliance in this regard, this suit had clearly taken a toll on our managerial resources and had begun to negatively impact our clients' productivity," said Gary Burkhartsmeier, HLC's Chief Executive Officer.
"In these challenging fiscal times, with the advent of a long-term freeze on governmental payments and statewide reimbursement cutbacks, our valued clients cannot afford productivity impediments and HLC clearly cannot afford to invest our precious resources into any activity that does not directly benefit our clients and the patients that they serve," he continued. "Nearly every major clinical laboratory has settled civil suits on similar issues over the past ten years. We had hoped to be the first laboratory to weather the storm and resolve this issue in court. Unfortunately, that desire must give way to the business necessity of guaranteeing continued excellence in the services that we render to our clients."
As part of the agreement, HLC will implement a Corporate Integrity Agreement (CIA) that will provide evidence and documentation of the compliance program in place at HLC. "We welcome the provisions of the CIA that will provide for an independent audit of our business practices that will clearly demonstrate the compliance that we build into every facet of our business," Mr. Burkhartsmeier stated. "This settlement will allow us to focus completely on serving our clients needs, retooling to state-of-the-art technologies and allow us to resume our industry-leading growth."
Health Line Clinical Laboratories, Inc.CONTACT: Gary Burkhartsmeier of Health Line Clinical Laboratories, Inc.,+1-818-954-0202, gburkhartsmeier@hlclab.com