Connecticut Attorney General William Tong announced a False Claims Act settlement in which Dr. Steven Murphy and his Stamford practices, including Murphy Medical Associates, LLC, will pay $866,539 to resolve allegations of submitting inflated bills to government health insurance and COVID-19 related fraud from September 2019 through April 2022.

The United States will receive $583,310 and Connecticut will receive $283,229. Attorney General Tong said: “Medical overbilling erodes public trust, wastes vital public resources, and is against the law. My office stands ready with our federal and state partners to take action against anyone who abuses the system.”

The Office of the Attorney General began investigating Murphy’s billing practices in May 2020. It found that his in-house lab performed blood tests on patients with possible COVID-19 exposure or symptoms, and on non-COVID patients. The practices billed Medicare or Medicaid separately for each test in a blood panel. The government alleges they billed for tests in their standard panel that were never performed because they lacked the reagents.

Congress created the COVID-19 Uninsured Program to reimburse providers for testing, treatment and vaccine administration for uninsured patients, and providers had to attest that patients were uninsured. The government alleges Murphy’s practices held documents showing certain patients were insured, yet changed their insurance information to “Covid19 HRSA Uninsured” and sought reimbursement.

Under the settlement, Murphy and his practices agreed to be excluded from all federal health care programs and the Connecticut Medical Assistance Program for three years.