State officials are probing whether a doctor ran a scam out of Coney Island Hospital’s laboratory – using its facilities for his private side business while bilking the medical center out of thousands of dollars, The Post has learned.
Officials at the state Health Department confirmed to The Post that there was an ongoing probe into the situation at the hospital’s lab.
Sources identified the doctor in question as Kumar Balakrishnan, who has retired from the hospital.
The situation unfolded last year when the state shuttered the private lab run by the doctor, who worked at the CIH pathology department, sources said.
It is unclear why his private lab was closed, but he soon developed a plan to use CIH’s facilities to run tests for his private business.
He planned to pay the hospital $5 per specimen and had a secretary type up a bill to his personal lab totaling $13,000, the sources said.
That would mean that some 2,600 tests were run at Coney Island’s lab. Medicaid reimbursed the doctor for much higher amounts for the tests, the sources said – as much as $144 per specimen.