Attorney General Michelle Henry announced numerous arrests and convictions that occurred in recent weeks involving over $800,000 dollars in Medicaid fraud.
Since October 30, the Office of Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Section prosecuted six cases in which the defendants defrauded Medicaid of a combined $405,900. In that same time, nine people were charged in different cases for allegedly fraudulently billing Medicaid a combined $405,500.
The crimes happened across Pennsylvania, including Beaver, Bucks, Dauphin, Lehigh, Montgomery, and Philadelphia counties.
“These cases illustrate a common theme: we must stop individuals and companies who defraud a system designed to help Pennsylvania’s eligible citizens,” Attorney General Henry said. “Anyone cheating the system is not only lining their own pockets, they are in effect taking services away from someone who badly needs them — and that is unacceptable.”
Many of the cases investigated and prosecuted by the Medicaid Fraud Control Section involve home health care workers overbilling, billing for services not provided, or billing for alleged services provided to multiple patients at the same time.
Three recent cases involving large sums are detailed below:
- On October 30, Anna Colon, of Lehigh County, was sentenced to up to two years in prison for fraudulently billing Medicaid over $300,000 for services that were never provided. Colon was a personal care attendant and support service professional employed by at least nine separate care agencies over a two-year period. During this time, Colon submitted timekeeping records that were blatantly false. Colon claimed for services when she was at home or tending to personal tasks. In some cases, she submitted well over 24 hours of work within a single 24-hour day.
- A week later, two Philadelphia-based care providers were arrested on similar charges for claiming over $100,000 in Medicaid reimbursement for services they never performed. Shavon Parker, owner of CodeRed Healthcare Services and a licensed practical nurse, and Alicia Singleton, a personal care attendant, were charged on November 7 with Medicaid fraud, theft by deception, criminal conspiracy, and other offenses. An investigation by the Office of Attorney General and the United States Department of Health and Human Services found that in some cases, the women were reportedly treating multiple patients at the same time. Other times, the women were out of the state or even the country when they claimed to be treating patients.
- Nearby, in Montgomery County, Broderick Carroll, a personal care attendant employed by three Medical Assistance agencies, turned himself in to authorities this week on Medicaid fraud charges. For several months, Carroll falsely reported overlapping services at each of his agencies, and was paid for services that he could not have possibly provided. In total, Carroll reported over 718 hours, for which the Medical Assistance program reimbursed in excess of $15,000, for services he never provided.
