Personal Care Attendants Indicted for Fraudulently Billing Medicaid
February 15, 2013
Personal care attendants are individuals (often times family members) that Medicaid pays to provide home based care services to Medicaid recipients, allowing the recipient to stay in their home as opposed to a nursing home setting. In 2007, 2008 and 2011, Mile Fainuulelei served as a personal care attendant for his father. The Alaska Medicaid Fraud Control Unit (MFCU) discovered that Mile was working at two other jobs during the time that he claimed to be providing Medicaid services to his father. In 2011, Mile also double billed Medicaid for personal care attendant services through two different agencies for the same care. In 2008, Katerina Letuane, Mile’s spouse, billed Medicaid for home-based -care services provided while the recipient was hospitalized. Medicaid regulations prohibit the billing of personal care attendant services while the recipient is hospitalized. The Alaska Medicaid Fraud Control Unit (MFCU) is part of the Attorney General’s Office. The MFCU is responsible for investigating and prosecuting Medicaid fraud and abuse, neglect or financial exploitations of patients in any facility that accepts Medicaid funds. The Alaska Medicaid Fraud Control Unit (MFCU) charged eleven additional defendants for Medicaid fraud and abuse since October 2012. The indictment and information adding misdemeanor counts for each of these cases can be found on the the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit's website. An indictment is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. An arraignment is a formal reading of a criminal complaint in the presence of the defendant to inform the defendant of the charges against him or her. In response to arraignment, the accused is expected to enter a plea.
On the Web:
Source of News:
E-mail your news &
photos to editor@sitnews.us
|
||