Home Health & Hospice Week

Another home health fraud case has been announced in Michigan — this one citing fraud to the tune of $61.5 million.

Walid Jamil and Jalal Jamil owned and operated several home health agencies in the Detroit area. They allegedly concealed their ownership interest in these agencies using straw owners and submitted about $50 million in fraudulent home health claims to Medicare for patients who weren’t homebound, didn't need home care, and often did not receive services, the Department of Justice says in a release.

The Jamils also paid kickbacks to patient recruiters for referrals. And they referred the patients to home visiting company Infinity Visiting Physician Services, whose physicians falsely certified patients for care and which submitted its own set of bogus charges for the patients. Infinity then turned around and had a similar kickback relationship with Integra Lab Management, in which Integra paid Infinity employee salaries, the DOJ says.

Besides the agency, practice, and lab owners, the feds also have charged patient recruiters, the HHA operators, and a home health nurse; physicians, an LPN, and a medical assistant at Infinity; and other individuals involved in the scheme, the DOJ says.

“The alleged actions of these defendants is an astonishing abuse of our health care system,” U.S. Attorney Dawn N. Ison says in the release. “These defendants looted Medicare in order to line their own pockets at great cost to taxpayers.”