Fraud & Abuse:
Hospices Feature In Fraud Cases
Published on Fri Mar 30, 2012
Whistleblower case leads to $700,000 settlement. It's not just owners of shady hospices that the feds are targeting -- it's also the nurses who support them. Nurses can't just claim innocence by saying they were following instructions from their boss, a newly unsealed indictment against five Philadel-phia-area hospice nurses shows. Last October, Home Care Hospice Inc. owner Matthew Kolo-desh was indicted on Medicare fraud charges in an alleged $9.3 million scam (see Eli's HCW, Vol. XX, No. 38, p. 302). Now a new indictment names HCH director of professional services and RN Patricia McGill and nurses Natalya Shvets, Giorgi Oqroshidze, Yevgeniya Goltman, and Alexsandr Koptyakov with fraud in the case as well. McGill authorized the nurses to fabricate and falsify documents in support of hospice services for patients who were not eligible for hospice care, or for a higher, more costly level of care than was actually provided to the patients, [...]