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Home Health & Hospice Week

Industry Note:

Two California HHA Owners Found Guilty Of Fraud

Published on Wed Jun 15, 2011

A federal jury has found one home health agency owner in California guilty of Medicare fraud, while his co-owner pled guilty to fraud charges. Evans Onihal, who was found guilty, and Camillus Ehigie, who pled guilty, owned Prosperity Home Health Services Inc. and a durable medical equipment company, Caravan Medical Supplies Inc. The men paid "marketers" for access to Medicare beneficiary information and fraudulent prescriptions and other documents for home health services and DME, according to the indictment. The services and items they billed "were not medically necessary, and that often were not provided to Medicare beneficiaries," says a release from the U.S. Department of Justice. Oniha and Ehigie caused Caravan to submit about $8 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare for home health services and $5.8 million in fraudulent claims for DME purportedly provided by Caravan, prosecutors say. Ehigie also owned another DME company, Osbed Medical Supply, which submitted [...]
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