(SitNews) Ketchikan, Alaska - Today, 36 year old Lorie Nabong Batac of Anchorage, an Anchorage property tax assessor, was charged with two counts of medical assistance fraud for claiming to be providing personal care attendant services to two Medicaid recipients when she was allegedly working another job or the recipients were traveling alone outside of the United States. No arraignment date has been set by the court as of yet.

Personal care attendants are health care providers that the Alaska Medicaid program pays for providing home-based health care services to Medicaid recipients. The program is designed to allow Medicaid recipients to stay in their home rather than being placed in a nursing home type setting. Medicaid pays approximately $24 per hour for the services provided and the personal care attendant receives approximately $16.50 per hour.

The charging document states that Batac allegedly billed Medicaid on five different occasions between October 2008 and January 2012, for personal care attendant services she claimed to be providing to two different Medicaid recipients when the recipients were traveling outside of the United States. Between November 2008 and March 2010, Batac also allegedly billed Medicaid for personal care attendant services she claimed to be providing the same recipients during times that she was working as a cashier at Home Depot. The total fraud alleged is over $60,000.

The Alaska Medicaid Fraud Control Unit (MFCU) has been part of the Attorney General's Office since January 1992. 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.

A charge is not evidence of guilt. A defendant is presumed innocent and is entitled to a fair trial at which the government must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Batac, as with all criminal defendants, is innocent until proven guilty.

The Alaska Medicaid Fraud Control Unit (MFCU) is located in Anchorage and has statewide jurisdiction. It has the responsibility for investigating and prosecuting Medicaid fraud and the abuse, neglect or financial exploitation of patients in any facility that accepts Medicaid funds.

Examples Of Fraud Schemes In Health Care:

• Billing for services not rendered
• Billing for higher level of services than actually performed
• Billing for more services than actually performed
• Charging higher rates for services to medicaid than others
• Coding billings to get more reimbursement
• Providing and billing for unnecessary services
• Misrepresenting an unallowable service in a Medicaid billing
• Falsely diagnosing so Medicaid will pay for more services

Message Hotline to Report Medicaid Fraud 1-907-269-6279
Medicaid Fraud / Elder Abuse Complaint Form - PDF(643K)

Edited by Mary Kauffman, SitNews

On the Web:

State v. Lorie Batac
http://www.law.state.ak.us/pdf/criminal/052013-BatacInfo.pdf

Source of News: 

Alaska Department of Law
www. law.state.ak.us

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