South Florida owner of test labs sent to prison for ripping off Medicare during pandemic
A pair of South Florida businessmen were accused of cheating the U.S. government out of tens of millions of dollars by exploiting waivers granted to telemedicine providers during the COVID-19 pandemic, prosecutors say.
Now one is going to prison, and the other is facing federal trial in Miami.
Leonel Palatnik, 42, of Aventura, was sentenced Tuesday to nearly seven years in prison after pleading guilty to ripping off the federal Medicare program by billing for unnecessary lab tests at his company, Panda Conservation Group.
As part of his plea deal, Palatnik admitted that he paid $50,000 a month in kickbacks to Michael Stein, owner of 1523 Holdings LLC in West Palm Beach, in exchange for his arranging for telemedicine providers to approve genetic testing orders for patients at Panda’s labs. The illegal monthly payments were disguised as tech-related consulting services, according to prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami and the Justice Department.
Their business dealings profited dramatically from the pandemic when the U.S. government lifted some telehealth restrictions that made it easier for Medicare patients to receive medical care from home, according to prosecutors.
In turn, Palatnik took advantage of the government waivers by using telehealth providers who authorized thousands of medically unnecessary cancer and cardiovascular genetic testing orders at Panda’s labs, prosecutors said. In exchange, Panda gave the telehealth providers access to patient information so they could bill for medical consultations that often did not take place, prosecutors said.
In total, Panda’s labs billed Medicare about $90.3 million and the taxpayer-funded program paid Palatnik’s company about $61.3 million for genetic testing orders obtained by illegal kickbacks between April and December 2020, according to a factual statement filed with the business owner’s plea agreement.
“When presented with the opportunity, Mr. Palatnik took the misguided path to make ‘easy’ money,” his defense attorney, Brian Bieber, wrote in a memo before Tuesday’s sentencing by U.S. District Judge Cecilia Altonaga.
Palatnik, who was born in Argentina and raised in the United States, must pay back his company’s ill-gotten payments to the federal government.
According to his plea deal on healthcare fraud and kickback charges, Palatnik has agreed to cooperate with prosecutors and possibly testify against Stein, the business associate accused of arranging for telehealth providers to steer patients to Panda’s testing labs. Stein, represented by attorney Howard Srebnick, has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.
The case, investigated by the FBI and Health and Human Services, was part of a COVID-19 Health Care Fraud take-down of 14 defendants in seven federal districts last May.
This story was originally published November 10, 2021 at 8:06 AM.
