The United States alleged that Patrick Britton-Harr owned and operated Provista Health, LLC as well as multiple other corporate entities that sought to profit from the unfolding COVID-19 pandemic by offering COVID-19 tests to nursing homes as a way to bill Medicare for a wide array of medically unnecessary respiratory pathogen panel (RPP) tests. The complaint alleged that these RPP tests were not medically necessary because the beneficiaries had no symptoms of a respiratory illness and because the tests were for uncommon respiratory pathogens.

Despite a court order prohibiting Britton-Harr from selling his house in Annapolis without approval from the court, he sold the house on September 23, 2023, for $575,000 and dissipated the financial proceeds from the sale. On March 4, 2024, the court granted the United States’ motion to hold Britton-Harr in civil contempt for violating this order and ordered him to deposit $575,000 with the court’s registry.

On July 18th, the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland entered default judgments for the United States totaling $26,341,951.38 against Patrick Britton-Harr and multiple laboratory companies owned by him for violations of the False Claims Act.  The court entered these judgments after Britton-Harr and his companies failed to defend against the United States’ allegations.

Source: US Attorney, District of Maryland