Home Health & Hospice Week
HHA Owner, Employee Face Medicaid Fraud Charges
Harmony Home Health Care owner Elena Kurbatzky and employee Natan Zalyapin have been arrested on charges of fraudulently billing $2.7 million to MassHealth for medically unnecessary or unprovided services, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey says in a release. Kurbatzky and Zalyapin pleaded not guilty to the charges in court. Zalyapin was released and Kurbatzky was transferred to Boston Municipal Court on an outstanding warrant, the AG says. “As conditions of their release, they must surrender their passports, be monitored by GPS, not travel outside of the state, check in weekly with the Probation Department, stay away from witnesses in the case, and not provide or bill for MassHealth services.” The state alleges a laundry list of misdeeds between February 2015 and October 2016, including Boston-based Harmony forging physician signatures on patient plans of care; “numerous instances” of nurses who provided services to several patients in different locations at the exact same time; billing for services while the patients were in inpatient facilities; and billing for services while the providers were traveling or at different jobs. Kurbatzky and Zalyapin provided the majority of Harmony’s services, reports The Boston Globe. The defendants also allegedly billed for physical, occupational, and speech therapy for the majority of Harmony’s MassHealth patients even though the services were not authorized by the patients’ physicians and Harmony did not employ licensed therapists to perform the alleged services, the AG says. And Kurbatzky also falsely enrolled in MassHealth, then allegedly billed for services from Harmony to herself that were not authorized by a physician. The charges come after the state announced last year that it was taking a number of fraud and abuse-fighting actions after MassHealth spending on home care skyrocketed over 80 percent in just two years (see Eli’s HCW, Vol. XXV, No. 7). As part of the campaign, state auditors found that nine agencies were overpaid $22.5 million (see Eli’s HCW, Vol. XXV, No. 30).
Home Health & Hospice Week
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HHA Owner, Employee Face Medicaid Fraud Charges
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