TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi says she was wrong to urge Medicare to pay for high-priced and unnecessary drug screening tests from a company being investigated for defrauding Florida Medicaid of millions.
Bondi told The Palm Beach Post (http://goo.gl/aHDRQM ) in an email Friday that she never should have issued a 2014 letter to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services supporting the tests performed by Millennium Laboratories. Bondi explained in her email that she believed the letter, drafted by her staff, only supported the general concept of drug testing, not a company that was under federal investigation.
Florida's Agency for Healthcare Administration, which oversees Medicaid, wrote both Millennium and Bondi's office in 2012, stating that company was probably running a kickback scheme.
Millennium agreed to pay $256 million in October to resolve federal kickback and civil fraud charges.
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Information from: The Palm Beach (Fla.) Post, http://www.pbpost.com
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