Blood Money is the story of how a Silicon Valley CEO became a fraud fighter. It is an insider’s look at the David vs. Goliathstruggle between a whistleblower seeking to save his company and stop taxpayers from being ripped-off, and healthcare companies engaged in massive fraud. Affecting millions of taxpayers, it is one of the biggest “hidden” stories in thehealthcare world — until now.
Imagine running a successful business in highest integrity — until squeezed out by a pair of companies engaging in one ofthe greatest predatory pricing schemes in the medical world. What do you do? Such was Chris Riedel’s dilemma, which ledhim to become one of the top medical whistleblowers and fraud fighters in U.S. history, which he chronicles in hisriveting true-crime book, Blood Money.
Chris ran a highly regarded Northern California lab testing company, Hunter Labs, until falling to the nefarious scheme of the “Blood Brothers,” Quest and LabCorp, the world’s top medical test labs. Their scheme, which involved loss-leader pricing to doctors to gain their business, and then overcharging Medicare, Medicaid and Medi-Cal as much as 40-fold, has cost taxpayers billions of dollars during the
past 15 years — and forced higher quality, but smaller labs like Hunter, either to fold or be absorbed by them.
In Blood Money, Riedel exposes the underworld of medical fraud in unsparing terms. He begins with the Blood Brothers’ fraud against Hunter Labs and others, which pushed Chris and his attorney partners, Niall McCarthy (son of former Calif. Lieutenant Governor Leo McCarthy) and Justin Berger into action. Chris and his attorneys blew the whistle, and won a landmark $300 million in settlements for the State of California and taxpayers in a highly publicized 2011 case.
Since then, his efforts have expanded into becoming a full-fledged medical fraud fighter against other lab testingcompanies defrauding taxpayers. Chris won settled cases in Florida, Michigan, Virginia, Nevada, Georgia, California and,most recently in November, a $28 million settlement against Boston Heart Diagnostics (see attached article). He and his team have worked both with and independent of the DOJ on 27 cases. They have another half dozen cases open.
Chris is a fraud fighter of highest esteem, a whistleblower not only going after medical fraud, but making surethe taxpayer doesn’t get ripped off any more. In all, he and his partners have won cases totaling $553 million, the vast majority of which went back to state and federal government treasury coffers.
Likewise, his open, deeply honest and often blunt writing in Blood Money makes him a voice to a wide reading audience – most of whom have undergone medical lab tests – would love to hear from. In Blood Money, he takes us on a compelling, sometimes high-drama adventure through the fight to survive vs. Quest and LabCorp’s practices, and thedire retribution he faced from these multi-billion dollar Goliaths — not to mention being weeks away from professionaland personal bankruptcy, and destroying the life he and Marcia had built. He chronicles the landmark 2011 Californiacase, the many he’s pursued since, and how fraud fighting has changed his life. Furthermore, he describes the world of the whistleblower in detail and offers universal tips to those considering taking such action, no matter the industry.
Chris visits with Mark Alyn on this episode of Late NIght Health.
The book is available on Amazon and other online booksellers.
Listen to chris and Mark here:
