Home Health & Hospice Week

Plus: Physician pays the price for referral remuneration.

Violating wage and hour laws can also mean violating Medicaid requirements, a recent case in Brooklyn shows.

Licensed home care service agency White Glove Community Care Inc. has agreed to pay $1.26 million to settle charges that it failed to pay its aides minimum wage, the Department of Justice and N.Y. Attorney General Letitia James say in a joint release. “The agency received payments from Medicaid, which is funded in part by the federal government, and is entitled to receive that money only if it paid its aides the required wages and benefits,” the release notes.

“This settlement — the third in our continuing investigation … reflects this Office’s ongoing commitment to providing home health aides the hard-earned benefits guaranteed them under New York law and the Medicaid program,” U.S. Attorney Breon Peace says in the release.

White Glove has also agreed to pay its aides $2 million for past due wages pursuant to a separate agreement it reached with the New York State Office of Attorney General Labor Bureau. The series of investigations was sparked by whistle­blowers, the release points out.

Other recent fraud cases include:

In Detroit: Thirteen years after whistleblowers filed a lawsuit in the case, a physician has agreed to pay $50,000 to settle charges that he received kickbacks in exchange for referring patients to home health agencies, the DOJ says in a release. HHAs Patient Choice Home Healthcare Inc. and All American Home Care Inc. were involved in the case. Physician Victor Savinov received kickbacks in the form of a credit card payment, free office space, and free use of a medical assistant in exchange for his referrals, prosecutors alleged. Qui tam relators Ruqiayah Madany and John Collins will receive $11,000 related to this settlement. The original complaint named over 30 defendants, and the government has either settled with or obtained judgments against most of those defendants, including a $40 million award in March 2022, according to the DOJ.

In New Hampshire: Michael Maggiacomo, former owner of Alerion Home Care and Wellness Solutions, will serve a month in jail after pleading guilty to presenting falsified nursing notes in connection with an audit by the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services. The false notes were intended to support Medicaid claims for nursing services that did not actually occur, the New Hampshire Department of Justice says in a release. Maggiacomo received a 12-month sentence, but all but one month was suspended.

In Texas: Fraud related to home health doesn’t necessarily have to involve Medicare and Medicaid. In San Antonio, Belinda Jo Juarez, owner of Superior Home Health Services, has been indicted for stealing employees’ insurance premiums, reports KSAT. According to the indictment, Juarez kept the premiums deducted from employees’ paychecks — about $140,000 — from August 2017 through at least March 2018 without passing them on to their health insurance providers, the TV station reports.