Home Health & Hospice Week

It's not just owners who are facing serious jail time in the feds' recent busts of home care agency fraudsters. In a Miami case, the office manager drew a six-and-a-half year prison sentence.

ABC Home health Care Inc. office manager and patient recruiter Lisandra Alonso pled guilty to teaching the owners and operators of ABC how to operate a fraudulent home health agency, negotiated kickback payment rates between ABC's owners and other patient recruiters, and distributed the payments, the Department of Justice says in a release. Alonso also taught nurses how to falsify patient records to support fraudulent claims, the DOJ says.

Alonso was sentenced to a whopping 78 months in prison, two years' supervised release, and ordered to pay $15.3 million in restitution.

Seventy-two-year-old ABC and Florida Home Health Care Providers Inc. patient recruiter Jose Ros and Florida Home Health RN and patient recruiter Farah Maria Perez also received jail terms after pleading guilty. Ros received a one-year sentence, three years supervised release and nearly $400,000 in restitution, the DOJ says. Perez was sentenced to six months in prison, two years supervised release and $118,000 in restitution.

Alonso, Ros, and Perez are the latest in a long string of guilty pleas and convictions related to the ABN and Florida Home Health fraud ring busted by the Medicare Fraud Strike Force under the Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Team (HEAT).

Meanwhile: In Los Angeles, an HHA owner who is an RN has pled guilty to a $5 million fraud scheme targeting Korean beneficiaries, the DOJ says in a separate release. Greatcare Home Health Inc. owner Angela (Hee Jung) Mun admitted to paying kickbacks to doctors, patient recruiters, and patients; billing Medicare for non-homebound and otherwise ineligible patients; billing for services not rendered or provided by unlicensed personnel; upcoding; and falsifying patient records.

Greatcare nurse Ji Hae Kim also pled guilty in the scheme. Mun and Kim will face sentencing in October. Two others, Seonweon Kim and Jung Sook Lee, have been charged in relation to the scheme, the DOJ adds.

Greatcare closed in March 2011 when the FBI raided its offices. Authorities have seized $1.2 million from the agency's bank accounts, the DOJ says in the release.

Finally: In Detroit, the co-owner of three HHAs has pled guilty to his role in a $14 million fraud scheme, the DOJ says in another release.

Tausif Rahman's agencies, Physicians Choice Home Health Care, First Care Home Health Care, and Quantum Home Care Inc., billed Medicare for services that never occurred, the feds say. Rahman admitted to paying kickbacks to doctors and beneficiary recruiters, directing staff to falsify patient records, and paying individuals who pretended to beneficiaries that they were doctors, among other things. And Rahman admitted to laundering the fraud proceeds through a shell company, Geo Rehab.

All three investigations occurred under the Medicare Fraud Strike Force program, which operates in nine cities.