Well, we knew it'd happen.

This week, I've been tapped by our CFO to help in a dispute against one of the federal regulatory agencies governing us and our funding. The short of it is this: an audit found they had overpaid us for our lab expenses to the tune of $200,000 a year for five years. In other words, they planned to shave a cool million off our next payment and withhold $200,000 a year from here on.

The reasons are utterly bogus. Claiming we're double-dipping. Part of that is claiming our low reference lab costs must be due to us billing patients. This is actually because I implemented a process to rebill insurance after the first denial, which knocked our lab bills down from $15,000/month to $2,000/month. So they're trying to penalize us for doing BETTER than average with the funding we received.

This is a way for the federal government to wrest money away from federally funded clinics without legislation. Without any kind of law changes. Just abuse of the audit system, and hope clinics just fold.

We're taking them to court to appeal.

But currently, I've got a million-dollar anvil over my head. I'm the guy in charge of our labs. If we somehow lose this appeal, then that information will go to the board of directors. And they'll ask the guy in charge of the labs what happened.

Our appeal is on Tuesday.

I've provided all the information asked of me to our CFO and lawyer.

So.

I'm going to get drunk now.