Home Health & Hospice Week

FBI will track fraudsters down, agent vows.

The long arm of the law is now foiling Medicare fraudsters’ plans to escape justice — even when they flee to other continents.

Background: Ebong Aloysius Tilong pleaded guilty in 2017 in two separate cases, after being indicted on charges relating to a scheme run through Fiango Home Health Care Inc. in Houston, Texas. In the $13 million fraud scam, Tilong and his wife and Fiango co-owner Marie Neba paid kickbacks to physicians, patient recruiters and patients themselves, prosecutors said. And they falsified medical records to make it appear patients qualified for and received home care services when they did not. After Neba was convicted at trial and sentenced to an astonishing 75 years in prison (see Eli’s HCW, Vol. XXVI, No. 31), Tilong failed to appear for sentencing in October 2017 and fled to Cameroon. He was sentenced to 80 years in prison in absentia that December.

Cameroon police arrested Tilong in 2019 and in September 2021, the Republic of Cameroon President Paul Biya signed a decree ordering Tilong’s removal to the U.S., the Department of Justice says in a release. On Dec. 10, U.S. Marshals escorted Tilong from Cameroon to the United States. It is “the first extradition from the Republic of Cameroon,” the DOJ notes.

“This successful extradition of Ebong Tilong to serve his 80-year prison sentence is an example of the FBI’s collaboration with our federal and international partners that we hope will deter others from fleeing to avoid prosecution or sentencing,” said FBI Agent Richard A. Collodi in the release. “These partnerships highlight the FBI’s reach as well as its determination to pursue actors anywhere to administer justice.”

Other recent home health fraud cases are less international and more state-level. They include:

In Illinois: Personal care assistant Shomanicka Holly admitted to submitting timesheets requesting payment for providing personal assistant services on dates and times when she was working at another job, the DOJ notes. Holly is scheduled for sentencing in April.

In North Carolina: Home care provider Lindsey Allison Kerns, the owner of Home Care Coordinators operating in Buncombe and Madison counties, was scheduled to plead guilty to defrauding two elderly clients of more than $1 million, reports The News Tribune in Tacoma, Washington. Kerns engaged in behavior including double billing for services, overcharging for services, and providing more services than agreed upon. Kerns used the proceeds to buy multiple vehicles, take lavish vacations, and shop for luxury goods, among other items, according to federal court filings. Kerns’ arraignment is delayed, due a positive COVID test, the newspaper reports.