Phony labs charge thousands to Des Plaines couple's health insurance (2025)

Lance and Debra Larson were stunned when their health insurance was billed over $84,000 by eight different labs they'd never heard of.

Even after reporting the suspected fraud, the charges kept coming. So NBC 5 Responds set out to find the labs, but what we discovered at their listed addresses left us with even more questions.

"[Our insurance was] paying out all this money to all these different labs for services that we were not receiving," said Debra Larson of Des Plaines. Larson fist noticed strange lab charges on her Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance explanation of benefits last summer.

"They were all labs. And I knew, you know, exactly what labs I had done. And I knew they weren't right," she said.

Each week without fail, lab charges for "diagnostic pathology" were being billed under either Debra or her husband Lance's name.

"Sometimes we might get one or two, sometimes we get a FedEx box full of them," said Larson, sitting next to a pile of bills.

While the Larsons weren't on the hook for the thousands in bogus claims, they wanted nothing to do with the fraud.

"Somebody's got my information and they're using it for fraudulent purposes," said Larson, who receives her BCBS health insurance through the state of Illinois.

That's when the couple came across our NBC 5 Responds investigation from early 2024.

"'Oh, wow, this is the exact same thing that's happened to us! And it's called phantom billing,'" said Larson.

The couple said they reported the phantom bills to BCBS multiple times. They were issued new health insurance policy numbers, but that didn’t stop the fraud.

Why? BCBS told us, "We don't comment on specific situations." But after that, Larson said she never heard back.

In total, the Larsons' health insurance was billed more than $84,000 by eight different lab companies. Their names: Rainbow labs LLC, Safeena Enterprises, Icon events, Care Foundation, Clear Labs, Synergistic Health DX, DH Diagnostics Inc and YMQ Labs.

NBC 5 Responds called each and every one of labs that billed the Larsons' insurance.Almost all of the dozen numbers we called were out of service. We left voicemails for the others but never heard back.

Next we headed to all the addresses we could find associated with the labs and their registered agents.

A few addresses took us to cultural learning and donation centers in the North Park and Skokie area, but no one we spoke to knew anything about the labs that were supposed to be there. The majority of the addresses took us to empty offices and storefronts.

One lab location had a stack of eviction notices taped to their door. A man working across the hall told us he'd never seen anyone in the lab. And again and again, people working next to these offices and businesses told us the same thing.

"The thieves have really moved over to healthcare and really taking it by storm," said Scott Speranza, CEO of HealthLock. Per their website, the company "helps restore privacy, control and savings to healthcare" by auditing members' medical bills and protecting against errors and overbilling

Sperenza explained most phantom billing fraud originates from data breaches. According to the HIPPA Journal, more than 133 million patient records have been exposed in data breaches since 2021.

"What happens is a fake billing company gets set up, they purchase group numbers … ID numbers, group number[s] and they submit a claim on my behalf. They receive money from the carrier. They shut down, they're a ghost and now they've created all this havoc," said Sperenza.

Speranza said many insurance companies use automation to process lower cost claims, so the fraud isn't always caught. But the insurance company isn't the only one paying the price.

And as their fake claims rack up, that's a worry that plagues the Larsons.

"If it's happening to us, it's probably be happening to a lot of different people," said Larson.

In a statement, a Blue Cross Blue Shield spokesperson told us: "Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinoisworks collaboratively to help detect and deter the fraud, waste and abuse that raises health care costs for everyone.

We don’t comment on specific situations, but we routinely review claims for legitimacy, audit providers, analyze data to detect unusual billing patterns, refer matters to law enforcement for their review and consideration, and work with law enforcement on their fraud investigations.

We advise members to review their Explanation of Benefits to make sure they had the medical exams and treatments shown by the provider, protect their member ID and other personal information, and report when these are lost or stolen.

Members can report suspected fraud by calling the number on the back of their insurance card. BCBSIL members can complete a fraud report, or call our hotline at 800-543-0867. Callers can remain anonymous."

We shared the results of our investigation with the FBI. A spokesperson says they can't comment on any next steps they may take. In a statement, an FBI Spokesperson told us:

"Generally speaking, the FBI is the primary agency for investigating health care fraud, which remains a top priority within our White-Collar Crime portfolio.

FBI Chicago encourages the public to report any instance of health care fraud directly to our Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov. Even if the public believes the fraud they encountered might be “minimal,” the FBI, along with our law enforcement and prosecutorial partners, often build cases when aggregate frauds occur from the same perpetrator. The public’s tip could be the missing puzzle piece in a case against fraudsters."

The FBI offers the following tips to help avoid health care scams:

• Protect your health insurance information. Treat it like a credit card. Don't give it to others to use, and be mindful when using it at the doctor’s office or pharmacy.
• Beware of "free" services. If you're asked to provide your health insurance information for a “free” service, the service is probably not free and could be fraudulently charged to your insurance company.
• Check your explanation of benefits (EOB) regularly. Make sure the dates, locations, and services billed match what you actually received. If there’s a concern, contact your health insurance provider.