Two men from north Alabama face federal charges related to medical kickback and health care fraud conspiracies.
James Ewing Ray, 51, of Gadsden, was indicted last week by a federal grand jury on six counts, including health care fraud, kickback conspiracy and four counts of substantive kickbacks, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Northern District of Alabama.
The indictment stated that between 2012 and 2018, Ray used his company, Integrity Medical, LLC, to create a kickback scheme by promoting "medically unnecessary" prescriptions, goods and other services that could be billed through various health insurers, including Medicaid.
Ray reportedly received a fee every time one of his doctors referred a patient to QBR, a testing facility in Huntsville owned by John Hornbuckle, who was indicted last March in a related health care fraud case.
According to Ray's indictment, "QBR billed insurers millions of dollars for electro-diagnostic testing that its technicians performed, regardless of whether there was a medical need for them."
The amount of allegedly fraudulent charges billed to federal insurers range into the millions, the indictment stated.
Ray could face up to 55 years in prison if convicted — a maximum of five years for kickback conspiracy, 10 years for health care fraud conspiracy and 10 years for each of the four substantive kickback charges.
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