On Friday, Pennsylvania Attorney General Michelle Henry announced there were numerous arrests and convictions over the past few weeks in regard to a Medicaid fraud case of over $800,000 in fraudulent billing.
The case underlines her commitment to hold anyone who steals from Pennsylvania accountable, officials said. Since Oct. 30, the Office of Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Section has prosecuted six cases where defendants defrauded Medicaid of more than $405,000, as well as charging nine people in different cases for fraudulently billing Medicaid more than $405,500. The crimes occurred across Pennsylvania, including in Beaver, Bucks, Dauphin, Lehigh, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties, the office said.
“These cases illustrate a common theme: we must stop individuals and companies who defraud a system designed to help Pennsylvania’s eligible citizens,” 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 involve home health care workers overbilling, billing for services not provided, or billing for alleged services provided to multiple patients at the same time.
In one case, Anna Colon, of Lehigh County, was charged with fraudulently billing Medicaid for more than $300,000 for services that were never provided. Colon was a personal care attendant and support service professional who was employed by at least nine separate care agencies over a two-year period. During that time, Colon submitted timekeeping records that were blatantly false, such as submitting well over 24 hours of work within a single 24-hour day.
In another case, Broderick Carroll, a personal care attendant employed by three medical assistance agencies, was charged for falsely reporting overlapping services at each of his agencies, and for reporting services he could not have possibly provided. Carroll reported over 718 hours for which he was reimbursed in excess of $15,000.