Home Health & Hospice Week

A patient recruiter for a network of fraudulent home health agencies in Detroit is facing more than seven years in prison after his fraud conviction. Richard Shannon was convicted of paying Medicare beneficiaries to sign blank documents for physical therapy services that were never provided and/or medically unnecessary, the Depart-ment of Justice says in a release. The owners of Patient Choice and All American HHAs then paid physicians to sign referrals and other therapy documents, and physical therapists and PT assistants would then create fake medical records using the blank, pre-signed forms obtained by Shannon and other patient recruiters to make it appear as if PT services had actually been rendered.

Shannon recruited destitute beneficiaries from housing projects and soup kitchens, obtaining their patient information in exchange for cash and promises of prescription narcotics prescribed by co-conspirator physicians, the DOJ says. Shannon was also sentenced to $1.6 million in restitution and three years’ supervised release.