A Georgia man suspected of taking part in an $11.5 million Medicare fraud has been indicted on charges stemming from crimes that allegedly occurred in the Augusta area.
Patrick C. Moore Jr. of Peachtree City is accused of conspiracy to defraud the United States and three counts of soliciting or receiving illegal remuneration and payment of kickbacks.
Moore alone was named in the indictment returned March 1 by a federal grand jury sitting in Savannah. He will be arraigned and face future court hearings in Augusta’s U.S. District Court. No court dates have yet been set.
The scheme Moore is alleged to have participated in involves fraudulent claims submitted to Medicare for genetic tests. According to the indictment, these claims were for tests that were medically unnecessary, not legitimately order by physicians and not legally eligible for the $11.5 million in payments that were received.
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Medicare is the federal health insurance program for those age 65 and older. The scam Moore was allegedly involved in supposedly provided testing that uses DNA sequencing to detect mutations in genes that may indicate a higher risk of developing certain kinds of cancer. Similar testing can assess the body’s possible response to certain medications, and other DNA tests that may predict future risks of cardiac conditions and diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.
As the indictment notes, these tests do not diagnose current illness or disease. A doctor must approve the test as medically necessary for the costs to be legally covered by Medicare.
Moore and a partner in Savannah, identified as Michael Speer in the indictment, owed two interchangeable companies: Center Street Marketing and Semiotic Concepts. Federal investigators believe the companies were fronts to funnel personal medical identity information and biological specimens to a company, only identified as “Company A,” that matched the information and samples to bogus doctor orders. Company A forwarded the submissions to laboratories that billed Medicare.
The personal medical identity information and biological specimens were gathered from unsuspecting patients in the Augusta area.
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According to Moore’s indictment, the laboratories then paid Company A kickbacks, and it paid Moore. Between August 2018 and November 2019, Moore and his partner collected $5.9 million from Company A, according to the indictment.
The alleged owners of Company A are identified as Clifford Powell and Christian Arendt in Moore’s indictment. They have pleaded guilty in connection with Medicare fraud in Texas and are awaiting sentencing, according to federal court records in Texas.
In Augusta in August 2021, another pair of men suspected in a similar medical fraud scheme were indicted, William Siveter and James Egar who operated Direct Medical Testing. According to their indictment, between March and September 2019, they got $2 million from a company also identified in their indictment as “Company A.” Siveter and Egar have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing. Siveter paid a pre-judgment payment of more than $2 million on Dec. 22.
Law enforcement officers learned of the of bogus DNA testing locally in 2018. People, usually dressed in lab coats with medical association ID badges, were going to homes in Richmond and Burke counties offering free DNA testing, forcing it on people with government or private insurance. The subsequent investigation led to a number of arrests and prosecutions in state and federal courts in the Augusta area.
Sandy Hodson is a staff reporter covering courts for The Augusta Press. Reach her at sandy@theaugustapress.com.
