FBI Investigates uBiome for Financial Misconduct

Federal agents searched the offices of the personal microbiome testing company in San Francisco on April 26 following allegations of improperly billing health insurers.

Written byChia-Yi Hou
| 1 min read
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ABOVE: uBiome is headquartered in San Francisco
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The Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking into biotech startup uBiome for miscoding financial compensation to doctors prescribing their products and over-billing health insurance companies for its home testing kits for human gut and vaginal microbiomes, reports STAT.

Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) showed up on April 26 at the startup’s headquarters in San Francisco, California, for “court-authorized law enforcement activity,” an FBI spokesperson writes in a statement to CNBC. Some employees of the company were told to stay home from work on Friday, a person familiar with the matter tells CNBC. A uBiome spokesperson tells The Wall Street Journal, “We are cooperating fully with federal authorities on this matter.”

In recent months, three people say to CNBCthat uBiome has repeatedly charged patients’ insurance plans twice for the same test. The health insurance company Anthem has flagged uBiome ...

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