Insiders describe aggressive growth tactics at uBiome, health start-up raided by the FBI last week
Company insiders describe how health start-up uBiome routinely billed patients multiple times without consent and pressured on-staff doctors to approve tests with minimal oversight.
After that, he says, uBiome sent him more than three emails every week pushing him to send back the samples. He ended up returning two, and received an Amazon gift card in return. He didn't finish the full six. His doctor didn't see the value in the test and he didn't learn anything new. Venture-funded direct-to-consumer health companies like uBiome have come under fire for failing to provide sufficient support to patients before prescribing medical testing. Many health experts are concerned about so-called "doc in a box" practices, where companies approve medical tests without communicating with patients outside of a checklist-style survey.
According to multiple insiders, the founders used billable samples, rather than the rate of claims getting reimbursed, as the key growth metric for the company, and routinely shared these figures with investors.say uBiome would repeatedly nudge patients, like Harris, to send in multiple samples, and bill their insurance each time. The company would also "upgrade" their samples, often without the patient's knowledge, and then bill again for those.
"Today, we don't really know who will benefit from this kind of screening, so we don't know the appropriate population for this test," he said. "Many doctors will say that if you're not having lots of symptoms, it would be unnecessary or unethical to recommend a $3,000 test." The spokesperson added: "Healthcare organizations such as uBiome are responsible for submitting all claims for reimbursement for the services provided by temporary clinicians, in accordance with applicable law and insurance requirements. Neither Staff Care nor the physicians it places submit insurance claims. Staff Care is committed to fully cooperating with any government investigation and to rigorously adhering to the highest standards of our industry.
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