This Small Florida Lab Became Medicare’s Biggest Biller for a $2,400 Epilepsy Genetic Test, Now is Shutdown

Inside an ordinary two-story office complex in Deerfield Beach, Florida, a clinical laboratory that barely existed a few years earlier became one of the most remarkable names in Medicare's rapidly growing genetic-testing business. Prince Laboratories LLC operates from Suite 104 at 450 Fairway Drive, a relatively modest address in the Hillsboro Executive Center near Interstate 95. The company was formed in Florida in November 2022 and obtained its National Provider Identifier in February 2023. By 2024, federal Medicare data shows Prince Laboratories processing thousands of expensive genetic tests for thousands of Medicare beneficiaries. One procedure stands out more than almost any other. CPT 81419 is a genetic-analysis panel used to evaluate genes associated with epilepsy. Medicare paid approximately $2,400 each time Prince Laboratories billed the test in 2024. According to CMS provider-level data, Prince performed 4,284 of them that year. That works out to approximately $10.28 million in Medicare payments from this single type of genetic test. Prince Laboratories was not merely a significant Florida provider of the epilepsy panel. The 2024 data places it ahead of every other provider listed nationally for the procedure, including Reliable Results Labs, another unusually high-volume genetic-testing laboratory located just down Fairway Drive in Deerfield Beach. Reliable Results Labs performed 2,739 epilepsy panels in the same dataset. Prince performed 4,284. The similarities between the two companies extend well beyond geography. Both appeared relatively recently. Both are registered as clinical medical laboratories in Deerfield Beach. Both generated unusually large volumes of sophisticated genetic tests billed to Medicare. And both appear near the top of national provider rankings for several of the same expensive procedures. Prince's epilepsy testing was only part of its 2024 activity. The laboratory also performed 4,413 genomic sequencing panels identified under CPT 81443, a code involving 15 or more genes associated with severe inherited conditions. Medicare reimbursement for that test was approximately $2,400 per service in the 2024 data. At that rate, the 4,413 tests represent roughly $10.6 million in Medicare payments. That means just two testing codes, the epilepsy panel and the severe inherited-condition panel, account for more than $20 million in Medicare payments connected with Prince Laboratories. And those were far from the only genetic tests it billed. CMS data associated with Prince shows 4,421 tests for hereditary disorders of the peripheral nervous system, 4,420 tests under another high-cost gene-detection code, thousands of cystic-fibrosis sequencing tests, more than 6,000 tests involving G6PD deficiency, more than 6,000 tests involving the BTK gene, and thousands of tests involving genes connected with blood, metabolic and inherited disorders. For several individual procedures, Prince appears as the highest-volume provider in the entire Medicare dataset. The scale is particularly striking because Medicare's population is overwhelmingly older. Most beneficiaries qualify at age 65, although younger people with certain disabilities and medical conditions can also receive coverage. Epilepsy genetic testing can be medically useful. Genetic panels can help doctors investigate unexplained seizures, identify inherited epilepsy syndromes and sometimes influence treatment. The test itself is legitimate, and a large number of claims does not by itself establish improper billing. But the explosive growth of expensive genetic testing among Medicare beneficiaries has increasingly attracted federal attention. The Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General has documented how genetic testing has become one of the largest components of Medicare laboratory spending. Genetic tests represent only a relatively small percentage of laboratory services, but their high reimbursement rates mean they account for a disproportionately large share of spending. That is exactly what makes a code such as 81419 so financially significant. A conventional laboratory test may reimburse a provider only a few dollars or a few dozen dollars. One epilepsy gene panel can generate approximately $2,400. A laboratory performing 100 of them could receive about $240,000. Performing more than 4,000 puts the total above $10 million. Prince Laboratories reached that level in its second full year after receiving an NPI. The company's physical surroundings make the numbers even more surprising. Prince is registered at 450 Fairway Drive, Suite 104. The building is part of a suburban office complex containing numerous small businesses and professional offices. There is nothing about the exterior that suggests one of the nation's highest-volume Medicare genetic-testing providers is operating inside. Even more unusually, another major genetic-testing laboratory was located less than a quarter mile away. Reliable Results Labs lists 600 Fairway Drive, Suite 104. Medicare data shows both companies appearing repeatedly near the top of lists for the same genetic-testing procedures. In the 2024 epilepsy-panel data, Prince ranks first with 4,284 services and Reliable Results follows with 2,739. For hereditary peripheral nervous-system panels, Prince recorded 4,421 services and Reliable Results recorded 2,780. For another genetic test listed under CPT 81440, Prince performed 4,420 services while Reliable Results performed 2,787. The concentration of high-volume genetic testing within such a small geographic area is notable, although geographic proximity alone does not establish that the companies are affiliated. Prince Laboratories is managed by Ashley Palazzola, according to Florida corporate records. The company was created on November 18, 2022, and remains listed as active with the Florida Division of Corporations. Prince's NPI also remains active. That is an important distinction because public complaints about the company can create the impression that it has disappeared. As of October 2026, the available government records do not show Prince Laboratories as dissolved. Its Florida corporation filed a 2026 annual report in April, and its federal NPI continues to identify Suite 104 at 450 Fairway Drive as its location. There are, however, consumer complaints connected with the Prince Laboratories name. Several reports submitted through the Better Business Bureau describe unsolicited telephone calls involving genetic or neurological testing. Some consumers alleged that callers already possessed personal information or Medicare details. One person reported receiving a genetic-testing kit after telling a caller that the testing should first be discussed with a physician. Another complaint came from a medical office alleging that patients told staff they had never requested tests the laboratory was calling about. Those reports deserve careful qualification. BBB Scam Tracker reports are submitted by consumers or businesses. They are not findings by law enforcement, CMS or a court, and the BBB itself warns that legitimate company names can sometimes be used by unrelated scammers. The existence of a complaint does not prove that Prince Laboratories committed Medicare fraud or even that the caller described in every report was actually working for Prince. There is currently no publicly identified criminal conviction establishing that Prince Laboratories fraudulently billed Medicare for these tests. What is established by federal data is the extraordinary volume. More than 4,200 Medicare beneficiaries received the epilepsy panel attributed to Prince Laboratories in 2024. Thousands more had claims for other inherited-condition and genetic tests. The laboratory reached the top of several national billing rankings despite having been established only about two years earlier. The epilepsy test provides the clearest example. Prince Laboratories went from 298 Medicare epilepsy-panel services in the 2023 provider data to 4,284 in 2024. That is more than a fourteenfold increase in a single year. At roughly $2,400 per service, the Medicare payments associated with that test jumped from approximately $715,000 to more than $10.2 million. The growth closely mirrors a much larger surge in Medicare genetic-testing expenditures across the country. Laboratories in Florida, Texas, New Jersey and several other states began billing thousands of tests under codes that previously represented relatively little government spending. CMS has responded by increasing scrutiny of genetic and molecular laboratory claims, identifying the sector as vulnerable to fraud, waste and abuse. Federal investigators have previously prosecuted other genetic-testing schemes in which Medicare beneficiaries were recruited for tests they did not medically need, sometimes through telemarketing operations or networks that obtained physicians' signatures on laboratory orders. That history does not establish that Prince Laboratories participated in such a scheme. It does explain why its billing numbers attract attention. The most interesting part of the Prince Laboratories story may simply be the contrast between the company's appearance and its place in federal spending data. At 450 Fairway Drive, there is no giant hospital campus, research university or national diagnostics headquarters. There is an ordinary South Florida office building. Yet Medicare's own 2024 records show a laboratory operating from that address processing more epilepsy genetic panels than any other provider in the dataset. More than 4,000 tests. Approximately $2,400 each. More than $10 million from one procedure alone. And just a short walk or drive down Fairway Drive was Reliable Results Labs, another small Deerfield Beach laboratory billing Medicare for thousands of many of the exact same genetic tests. For now, Prince Laboratories remains active in public records. There is no confirmed mysterious shutdown to report, and there is no public criminal finding establishing that its billing was fraudulent. But the numbers themselves are unusual enough to raise a much broader question about America's rapidly expanding genetic-testing industry: how did small laboratories in ordinary Florida office parks become some of Medicare's largest billers for highly specialized inherited-disease tests?