Missouri Attorney General issued the following announcement on June 4.
Due to prosecutions and convictions obtained by the Missouri Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, four Missouri providers were added to the Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General’s exclusion list, meaning that they are excluded from participating in all government healthcare programs.
“My Office’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit works tirelessly to root out, investigate, and prosecute those who are defrauding the Medicaid system and the State of Missouri. Because of their work to prosecute individuals who have gamed the Medicaid system for personal gain, those individuals will no longer be able to defraud Missourians or anyone else,” said Attorney General Schmitt.
The four individuals that were barred are:
- Michael Nash: pled guilty to healthcare fraud on 11/6/2020 in Oregon County for causing another to submit false timesheets on his behalf claiming he was providing in-home care to a Medicaid recipient while Nash was incarcerated. Prosecuted by assistant attorney general Sarah Schappe and investigator Taylor Walls.
- Samantha Arnold: pled guilty to healthcare fraud on 10/6/2020 in St. Louis County for submitting false timesheets claiming she was providing in-home care for a minor Medicaid recipient when she instead failed to provide the care and forged the minor parent’s signature. Arnold defrauded Medicaid of $2,536.46. Prosecuted by assistant attorneys general Sarah Schappe and Eric Kinnaw and investigator Michael Irey.
- Lucretia Hardy: pled guilty to healthcare fraud on 10/30/2020 in St. Louis County for submitting false timesheets claiming she was providing in-home care to Medicaid recipients who were in other facilities at the same time. Hardy defrauded Medicaid of $2,193.56. Prosecuted by assistant attorney general Brad Crowell and investigator Amy Moffett.
- Yvonne Woods: pled guilty to healthcare fraud on 12/20/2020 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri for submitting false telephony records claiming her in-home care attendant was providing her services. Wood’s attendant had stopped providing her services in 2014 and Woods continued to submit claims until 2019. Woods defrauded Medicaid of $127,511.66. Prosecuted by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri with help from MFCU investigators Amanda Burrows and Crystal Lewis.
As part of this exclusion, the providers and individuals are barred from participating in any capacity in Medicare, Medicaid, or any federal government healthcare services.
The Missouri MFCU receives 75 percent of its funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under a grant award totaling $2,818,808 for Federal fiscal year 2021. The remaining 25 percent, totaling $939,601 is funded by the State of Missouri.
Original source can be found here.