The FBI has revealed that the co-owners of a Dallas, Texas home health company and two nurses employed at the facility have been charged in a Dec. 21 indictment for allegedly participating in a $13.4 million fraud scheme.
According to the indictment, the defendants are Patience Okoroji, Usani Ewah, Kingsley Nwanguma and Joy Ogwuegbu, who were each charged with one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud. Okoroji and Ewah were also charged with five counts of health care fraud; Nwanguma was charged with three counts of health care fraud and Ogwuegbu was charged with four counts.
From Home Health Care News:
Ewah and Okoroji co-owned Timely Home Health Services Inc., where Ewah worked as the director of nursing and a registered nurse and Okoroji served as an administrator and licensed vocational nurse. Ogwuegbu was a registered nurse at the agency, and Nwanguma was a licensed vocational nurse there.
The indictment claims that from about January 2007 to September 2015, the defendants schemed to defraud Medicare by causing the submission and concealment of fraudulent and false claims to the program. In some cases, Okoroji and Ewah would pay recruiters, including Nwanguma, to recruit beneficiaries for home health services, without regard to whether the beneficiaries required home health care. Ewah, Okoroji and Ogwuegbu reportedly prepared or caused to be prepared fraudulent Medicare documents that made it seem as though the beneficiaries qualified for home health services. Then, physicians used the documents to certify Medicare beneficiaries for home health care.
The indictment alleges that the defendants defrauded Medicare out of $13,434,550 based on false and fraudulent claims.
To learn more about health care fraud and how to prevent it, visit www.stopmedicarefraud.gov.
Photo by Joe Gratz via Flickr CC License
