Home Health & Hospice Week

Two home health agency owners — one a registered nurse — have been sentenced to prison and ordered to pay more than $8.2 million in restitution for a Medicare fraud scheme.

Patricia Omorogbe and Felix Omorogbe owned and operated A&Z Home Health Care and Dominion Home Health Care in Lansing, Illinois, and Alliance Home Health Care in Hammond, Indiana, the Department of Justice says in a release. The Omorogbes are Nigerian nationals and a couple, according to press reports.

From January 2009 to June 2018, the Omorogbes paid bribes and kickbacks to patient marketers in exchange for referrals of Medicare beneficiaries, the DOJ says.

Among her misdeeds, Patricia Omorogbe signed sham contracts with patient marketers and falsely represented that she, as an RN, performed assessments of patients on dates when she was out of the country, the DOJ says. Felix Omorogbe wrote checks to himself and agency employees, who would then convert the checks to cash that was used to pay kickbacks to marketers. And “it was the practice of the Omorogbes’ companies to admit, discharge, and re-certify certain patients repeatedly, regardless of their medical conditions,” the DOJ says.

In addition to the restitution, Patricia Omorogbe was sentenced to two years in prison and Felix Omorogbe was sentenced to 18 months.