Home Health & Hospice Week

Tip: Hiding evidence in your jail cell does not lead to a lenient sentence.

A recently announced fraud settlement shows that whistleblower suits can come from really unexpected quarters.

Best Choice Home Health Care Agency Inc. in Kansas City, Kan., and its owner, Reginald King, have agreed to pay $1.8 million to resolve allegations that Best Choice and King paid kickbacks for Medicaid patient referrals, the Depart-ment of Justice says in a release.

In an interesting twist, the recipient of the kickbacks actually filed the qui tam suit against the agency in the case. Best Choice allegedly paid Christopher Thomas, who transported patients from their homes to health care facilities in Kansas City, $58,000 in kickbacks for new patients referred to Best Choice based on a formula that accounted for each hour of service that the agency billed to Medicaid.

As the whistleblower suit relator, Thomas will receive $43,178. However, the amount that he received in kickbacks during the duration of the scheme will be deducted from that amount.

Other recent kickback-related convictions and sentences include:

In Texas: A federal jury has convicted a Houston-area home health agency co-owner who was also the Director of Nursing of Medicare fraud. Marie Neba’s co-owner and husband, Ebong Tilong, pled guilty in the case one week into Neba’s trial, the DOJ says in a release. In a $13 million fraud scheme, Neba and Tilong, owners of Fiango Home Healthcare Inc., paid kickbacks to physicians, patient recruiters and patients themselves, prosecutors say. And they falsified medical records to make it appear patients qualified for and received home care services.

Three others have pled guilty in the scheme — physician Nirmal Mazumdar, Fiango’s former medical director, and patient recruiters Daisy Carter and Connie Ray Island.

In Detroit: Two defendants in a home health fraud case have been sentenced to lengthy prison sentences. Zafar Mehmood and Badar Ahmadani were convicted of fraud and related charges last year. From 2006 through 2011, Mehmood and Ahmadani obtained patients by paying cash kickbacks to recruiters, who in turn paid cash to patients to induce them to sign up for home care with Mehmood’s companies: Access Care Home Care Inc., Patient Care Home Care Inc., Hands On Healing Home Care Inc. and All State Home Care Inc. The evidence also showed that the defendants paid kickbacks to physicians to refer patients to the defendants’ companies for unnecessary home care services, the DOJ says in a release.

Mehmood was also convicted of stealing evidence in the investigation from an HHS Office of Inspector General facility. Law enforcement recovered the missing documents and materials during the execution of a search of Mehmood’s jail cell.

Mehmood received a 30-year prison sentence and Ahmadani received an eight-year prison sentence, according to the DOJ. Mehmood was also ordered to repay $40.5 million and Ahmadani was ordered to repay $38.2 million.