Vic Wadhwa, the former CFO of a group of pain management clinics located in central Maryland, has pleaded guilty to soliciting and receiving kickbacks in return for referrals, according to the Department of Justice.
Mr. Wadhwa served as the financial leader at clinics that generated hundreds of urine samples each month and sent the samples to outside laboratories for testing. In 2011, Mr. Wadhwa and others at the clinics decided to start sending the urine samples to a lab in New Jersey that paid kickbacks for samples. Mr. Wadhwa was in charge of negotiating the arrangement, and the New Jersey lab agreed to pay the pain clinics kickbacks "equal to half of its profit, after accounting for expenses" for every sample, according to the report.
The pain clinics began receiving kickback payments in July 2011 and the scheme ended in July 2012. During that time, the lab paid the clinics $1.38 million in kickbacks, with $459,245 going to Mr. Wadhwa, according to the report.
Mr. Wadhwa faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
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