Hoodwink in Hartford: Home Health Care Company and Its Owners Settle Medicaid False Claims Act Allegations
United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, Vanessa Roberts Avery, and Connecticut Attorney General, William Tong announced that Home Care VNA LLC and its current and former owners, Shakira Lubega and Constant Ogutt, have agreed to pay $361,520 to resolve allegations that they submitted claims for home health care services that violated Medicaid regulations for plans of care.
Home Care VNA is a home health agency located in Hartford, Connecticut. Lubega is the current owner of Home Care VNA. Ogutt is a former and part owner. Lubega and Ogutt are married.
The Regulations of Connecticut State Agencies require that each patient has a plan of care as a condition of payment for home health care services. The plan of care must be signed by a licensed practitioner within 21 days after the care begins. A new or modified plan of care is reviewed, revised, and signed every 60 days.
According to the United States and the State of Connecticut, Home Care VNA, Lubega, and Ogutt submitted or caused the submission of claims for reimbursement to Connecticut Medicaid for home health care services for patients with unsigned plans of care, or patients without any plans of care.
Home Care VNA, Lubega, and Ogutt have agreed to pay $361,520 to resolve the False Claims Act allegations from August 1, 2018, through March 26, 2020. They are not strangers to such allegations. In 2022, they paid $630,000 to resolve similar plan of care Medicaid fraud allegations in Massachusetts.
The Office of Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services investigated this case. It will be prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard M. Molot and by Assistant Attorney General Joshua Jackson of the Connecticut Office of the Attorney General.
There is a concerning pattern of fraud in the home health care sector relating to patient-specific plans of care. Constantine Cannon litigated a False Claims Act whistleblower lawsuit addressing this issue against VNS Health (formerly, Visiting Nurse Service of New York/VNSNY), the largest not-for-profit home health care agency in the country, serving roughly 150,000 patients a year in New York, most of whom are elderly and/or disabled. The case alleged that VNSNY systematically failed to provide patients all the critical visits and services their doctors prescribed in the plans of care. After several years of litigation, VNSNY agreed to pay $57 million to settle the case.
If you would like to learn more about health care fraud, the False Claims Act, or what it means to be a whistleblower, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We will connect you with an experienced member of our whistleblower team.
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