Houston is the site of two new home health fraud case developments. Case No. 1: Joseph Nwankwo and Stacey Ajaja, co-owners of home health agency Hefty Healthcare Services Inc., are headed to prison for home health fraud, the Department of Justice says in a release. They admitted to paying kickbacks to marketers and patients for referrals, and Nwankwo admitted to bribing a physician to authorize medically unnecessary services for Hefty patients. Nwankwo faces three years in federal prison and $1.2 million in restitution while Ajaja received a 14-month prison term and about $238,000 in restitution, the DOJ says.
Case No. 2: Married couple Caroline and Rommel Zamora have been indicted on Medicare fraud charges. The Zamoras own 24/7 Stat Care Home Health Services Inc. aka Parkway Healthcare Services. They allegedly paid illegal cash kickbacks to Medicare patients to sign up for home health services with Parkway and to doctors to certify and refer patients for home health who did not qualify, the DOJ says in a release. Medicare paid Parkway $6.7 million for the patients who didn’t qualify for services, prosecutors say.