Clinical Lab Company Settles Physician Office Rent Allegations

BioReference Health LLC and OPKO Health Inc. have agreed to pay $9.85 million to resolve False Claims Act allegations that BioReference made lease payments to physicians for office space that exceeded fair market value, the Department of Justice announced Thursday.

BioReference allegedly inaccurately measured the amount of space it would use exclusively and also included a disproportionate share of common spaces when calculating lease payments, according to the Justice Department. BioReference then didn’t report or return the overpayments to federal health care programs after an internal audit showed the payments exceeded market value, the department said.

BioReference has entered into ...