COVID-19 test billing fraud

What it is

A website, a phone call, a TV ad or a table set up outside a pharmacy offers a COVID-19 test at no cost. The test itself might be real. What the offer exists to collect is a Medicare number or private insurance information, the one thing a laboratory needs to bill a claim. From there, the COVID-19 test becomes the occasion for billing something else entirely: a respiratory pathogen panel, a drug test, or another far more expensive test that a doctor never ordered and that a lab sometimes never ran at all.

The pandemic gave this fraud two advantages no earlier Medicare billing scheme had. Testing access points, drive-through sites, mobile labs, specimen collection inside nursing homes, were everywhere and treated as urgent, and federal payers relaxed their usual claims-review rules to get testing paid for quickly. The HHS Office of Inspector General has been opening and resolving COVID-19 testing fraud cases continuously since 2020, and new convictions and guilty pleas were still being announced in October 2026, six years after the first lockdowns.

How it actually works

1. The offer

   A website, phone call, TV ad or on-site table advertises a free or “no cost” COVID-19 test. Fast Lab Technologies ran its version online, marketing the test as free to anyone who entered their insurance information. Provista Health’s version ran inside nursing homes, collecting specimens from residents during the facilities’ required pandemic testing routine.

2. The Medicare or insurance number

   Getting the free test means handing over Medicare or insurance information, the one thing a lab needs to bill a claim. Nursing home residents in the Britton-Harr case never saw a form or a bill; their Medicare numbers were already on file with the facility that was billing them.

   Where it could have stopped

   The FTC and HHS Inspector General both warn against giving a Medicare number to anyone who calls, texts, advertises online or sets up a table offering a free test. Medicare does not call beneficiaries with testing offers, and nobody legitimate needs your Medicare number to give you one.

3. A second test riding on the first

   The COVID-19 swab becomes the occasion for billing an unrelated, far more expensive test. Provista Health billed a respiratory pathogen panel every time a COVID-19 specimen was collected from a nursing home resident, regardless of whether a doctor ordered one or whether the panel was run at all.

4. An order, or a claim, with no basis

   A doctor who never examined the patient signs the order, or no real order exists. Fast Lab’s medical director is alleged to have ordered the majority of its tests without seeing the patients billed for them, and prosecutors say the company submitted claims for payment before test kits had even shipped.

5. Billed before, or after, the service existed

   Claims went out ahead of any service being performed, or kept going after the lab that supposedly ran them had already closed. Provista Health kept billing for respiratory panels from its Arizona laboratory for months after that facility’s equipment was gone and its employees were barred from entering.

6. The payer pays, pandemic rules and all

   Medicare, Medicaid, TRICARE and private insurers reimbursed testing claims quickly, under rules relaxed specifically to speed pandemic-era access to COVID-19 testing. By the time a claim was flagged, the money had generally already gone out.

7. Enforcement years later

   The scheme periods documented here run from 2020 into 2022. The convictions and sentences came years afterward: Taylor in 2023, Seyhun and Britton-Harr in 2026, and the HHS Inspector General’s own enforcement log counted 192 separate COVID-19-related actions as of October 2026.

Why it works

The access point already felt official. Nursing homes were legally required to keep testing residents, and drive-through sites were government-sanctioned. Handing over an insurance number in that setting read as routine paperwork, not a risk.

“Free” removes the only check most people perform. Nobody haggles over the price of something that costs nothing, so there is no total to question before handing over the one piece of information the scheme actually needed.

The second test rides inside a legitimate one. Nobody is checking whether a COVID-19 swab turned into a respiratory panel claim, and the person tested, especially a nursing home resident, often never sees the line items a lab submits on their behalf.

Payers were told to move fast. Pandemic-era reimbursement rules prioritised speed over verification, the same pay-and-chase dynamic documented across Medicare fraud generally, which gave operators months to bill before a claim was flagged.

Some of the billed people could not have objected even if they had seen the bill. Prosecutors in the Britton-Harr case said some of the respiratory panel claims were submitted for nursing home residents who had already died.

Where it comes from

Entirely domestic: this fraud exploits Medicare, Medicaid, TRICARE and US private insurance, so every documented case here is a US case.

Scale runs from a single small operator to a nationwide platform. Billy Joe Taylor ran two Arkansas-based companies, Vitas Laboratories and Beach Tox. Fast Lab Technologies, by contrast, logged more than $500 million in claims nationwide through one online operation.

Enforcement has run continuously since 2020, not in a single takedown. By October 2026, the HHS Inspector General’s own enforcement log listed 192 separate COVID-19-related criminal and civil actions, a number still growing six years after the first lockdowns, including new convictions and pleas announced that same month.

Not every defendant in a documented scheme has reached the same point in court. Fast Lab’s chief operating officer, Hasan Seyhun, pleaded guilty in September 2026. Its CEO and medical director, Cemhan Biricik and Dr. Martin Perlin, were charged in July 2025 and, as of this page’s last review, had not been reported convicted, sentenced or acquitted; the allegations against them are allegations, and both are presumed innocent unless and until a court finds otherwise.

Real cases

Red flags

• An unsolicited “free” or “no cost” COVID-19 test advertised by phone, text, website or TV ad.
• A request for your Medicare or insurance number to receive a free test, rather than to receive care you asked for.
• A caller who claims to represent Medicare. Medicare does not call beneficiaries with testing offers.
• A second, unexplained test billed alongside a COVID-19 test, such as a respiratory panel nobody mentioned.
• Charges on a Medicare Summary Notice or insurance Explanation of Benefits for a lab or test you do not recognise.
• A nursing home or care facility that cannot explain exactly which tests were billed for a resident, or who ordered them.

If it’s happening to you

1. Check your Medicare Summary Notice or insurance Explanation of Benefits for any lab or test you do not recognise.
2. Do not give your Medicare number to anyone who contacts you unexpectedly, whether by phone, text, website or an in-person table, offering a free test.
3. If a family member is in a nursing home or care facility, ask the facility directly which tests were billed for them and whether a doctor ordered each one.
4. Report suspected Medicare billing fraud to the HHS Inspector General hotline at 1-800-447-8477 (TTY 1-800-377-4950) or tips.hhs.gov.
5. Report it to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. See where to report for agencies in other countries.

Where the money goes

Entirely domestic, from the payer straight into the testing company’s accounts, then out to its owners and executives personally.

Medicare, Medicaid, TRICARE and private insurers pay the lab or testing company that submitted the claim. From there, the documented cases show the money going directly to the people who ran the operation rather than through any separate laundering chain. Seyhun agreed to forfeit $4,313,153, the amount prosecutors say he personally received from the Fast Lab scheme. Britton-Harr spent Provista Health’s proceeds on a $112,500 Porsche 911 and an Annapolis waterfront mansion with $25,000 monthly mortgage payments. Taylor was ordered to pay $29,835,825.99 in restitution after receiving more than $38 million from Medicare through Vitas Laboratories and Beach Tox.

By the numbers

No published dataset breaks this scheme out as its own category yet, so there is no chart to show. The data page explains which agency categories exist and why some schemes are invisible in official statistics.