Home Health and Hospice

February 3, 2021

The former CEO of Texas hospice and home health chain the Merida Group, Henry McInnis, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison following his conviction for healthcare fraud and alleged charges.  McInnis and his co-conspirator Rondey Mesquias, who was previously sentenced to 20 years in prison, submitted over $150 million in fraudulent Medicare bills between 2009 and 2018 by falsifying medical records and telling thousands of patients with long-term incurable diseases they had less than six months to live in order to enroll the patients in hospice programs for which they were otherwise unqualified.  In addition, McInnis directed Merida’s practice of paying physicians bogus “medical director” fees in exchange for those doctors falsely certifying unqualified patients for hospice and home health, as well as paying improper kickbacks to patient recruiters.  DOJ

January 19, 2021

Texas-based Allstate Hospice LLC and Verge Home Care LLC and their founders, Onder Ari and Sedat Necipoglu, have paid over $1.8 million to resolve allegations of submitting claims to Medicare that were tainted by improper inducements.  In violation of the Physician Self-Referral Law and False Claims Act, the defendants allegedly set up monthly payments to referring physicians through sham medical directorship agreements, sold interests to five referring physicians in order to provide them with substantial quarterly dividends, and provided other referring physicians with free tickets and travel.  USAO SDTX

December 18, 2020

Massachusetts home health agency Maestro-Connections Health Systems, LLC and its CEO George Kiongera will pay $10 million to settle claims that it falsely billed the state’s Medicaid program, MassHealth, for home health services that lacked the required physician plan of care certifying that the home health services were medically necessary.  Mass

December 16, 2020

Texas resident Rodney Mesquias, the former owner and officer of hospice services provider Merida Group, was sentenced to 20 years in prison following his conviction on fraud charges.  According to the evidence at trial, Mesquias falsely told thousands of individuals and their families that they had less than six months to live, so that he could enroll them in hospice programs, denying them from accessing curative care.  Mesquias also paid kickbacks to physicians for referring patients with long-term diseases such as Alzheimers and dementia.  Over  nearly ten years, Mesquias’ scheme resulted in the submission of $150 million in false and fraudulent claims for medically unnecessary services.  DOJ

December 10, 2020

Teresita Lumanas Alquero, the former owner of Providence Home Health and Providence Hospice, agreed to pay $1.05 million to resolve False Claims Act claims first made in an action brought by a whistleblower that she paid improper kickbacks to the medical director of Providence.  The payments exceeded fair market value and were intended to induce the doctor to refer Medicare patients to Providence.  USAO SDTX

December 2, 2020

The owner and operator of Atlanta-based Elite Homecare has been sentenced to over five years in prison and ordered to pay $999,999 in restitution for defrauding Medicaid of nearly $1 million.  As a provider under the Georgia Pediatric Program (GAPP)—an in-home nursing program for Medicaid-eligible children with severe physical and cognitive disabilities—Diandra Bankhead allegedly submitted thousands of claims for services that were fraudulent in a myriad of ways.  Some of the claims falsely represented that employees provided more than 24 hours of services in a given day to multiple children simultaneously (including to children whose families had not retained Elite, and by RNs who did not know their credentials were being used), while other claims contained fraudulent credentialing information and fraudulent supporting documentation, or were upcoded to induce higher payments from Medicaid.  Additionally, Bankhead allegedly “sold” information about twenty of Elite’s former clients to another Atlanta-based home health provider in exchange for a percentage of the reimbursements from Medicaid.  USAO NDGA

October 16, 2020

Massachusetts home health agency Altranais Home Care, LLC and its owners, Constant Ogutt and Shakira Lubega, will pay $3.1 million to resolved claims that they submitted false claims to the state’s Medicaid program, MassHealth.  According to the state, the defendants billed for services for which they did not have a physician-authorized plan of care.  Mass

August 19, 2020

Metropolitan Jewish Health System Hospice and Palliative Care agreed to pay a total of $5.225 million resolve civil allegations that it billed Medicare and Medicaid for services rendered to hospice patients at heightened levels of care for which the patients did not qualify, in violation of the False Claims Act. A government investigation following the filing of a whistleblower complaint determined that defendant falsely claimed that some of its patients required heightened “continuous home care services” and “general inpatient services,” thereby entitling the defendant to artificially inflated reimbursements.  USAO ED NY