By Kirell Lakhman

A clinical lab in Springfield, Mass., will pay $450,000 to settle charges with the state's Attorney General that claimed it defrauded the state's Medicaid program, according to a local news report yesterday.

According to a report in MassLive.com, between 2004 and 2009 the lab, Life Laboratories, billed Medicaid for urine and alcohol tests that were "not properly ordered by a doctor or approved prescriber," said Attorney General Martha Coakley, who announced the settlement. The lab is owned by System Coordinated Services.

The complaint had stated that the drug and alcohol tests were "inappropriately ordered for non-medical purposes," and that the lab allegedly "overcharged Medicaid for the tests by failing to give the program its best price."

“Medicaid does not recognize urine testing for sobriety as a valid medical purpose,” the report said, adding that the lab "is no longer providing services to the client for that program."

According to a separate report in an independent news outlet, the settlement "comes as a result of an industry-wide investigation by Coakley's Medicaid Fraud Division into urine drug tests billed by independent clinical labs to the state Medicaid program."

"We will continue to work with our state and federal partners to police fraud, waste and abuse of a program that so many people depend on," Coakley's was quoted as saying in the second report.

The broader investigation into Life Laboratories "revealed that, from 2004-2009, the company and many other independent clinical labs in the state billed Medicaid for urine, drug, and alcohol tests that were not properly ordered by a doctor or authorized prescriber and were ordered inappropriately for non-medical purposes, including residential sobriety monitoring," according to the report.