The DOJ announced on September 27 that 35 defendants were charged in five districts throughout the country in a fraud scheme involving telemedicine companies and cancer genetic testing laboratories (CGx). The alleged scheme involved the payment of illegal kickbacks and bribes by various CGx laboratories in exchange for referral of Medicare beneficiaries by medical professionals working with fraudulent telemedicine companies for medically unnecessary cancer genetic testing. In many cases, the results of the tests were not conveyed to the beneficiaries or were worthless to their actual doctors. Some defendants controlled a telemarketing network that lured hundreds of thousands of elderly or disabled patients into the alleged criminal scheme. The defendants allegedly billed Medicare for more than $2.1 billion.