Healthcare Compliance Perspective:
Healthcare fraud may at times pale by comparison to horrific criminality; however, it does stand on its own with significant consequences.
After pleading guilty to two counts of healthcare fraud, a former Middletown, Ohio nurse who had been convicted of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the death of a 14-year-old girl,received an additional federal sentence of 36 months in prison for healthcare fraud on July 26. This sentence is in addition to the 10-year prison sentence she received for her role in the girl’s death. She had been employed as a home healthcare nurse for the girl who had severe physical impairments.
The nurse had accepted payment through Medicaid to provide daily nursing services, which included wound care, personal hygiene maintenance and feeding assistance. The disabled girl had been unable to communicate, was completely paralyzed and was dependent upon feeding tubes.
Instead of working her shift and providing those services, the nurse was frequently absent from the home for extended periods of time. To cover up the neglect, she would send false claims to Medicaid and accepted the fraudulent payments for private duty nurse services for over two years.
The severely neglected girl died March 1, 2011, after being transferred to the hospital from her home that was described as “vile, filthy and trash ridden,” and her body had numerous bed sores and signs of neglect. She weighed only 28 pounds at the time of her death.
The sentence is set to be served consecutively to her previous state sentence, and the nurse has been banned from working for any governmental entity in the healthcare field for the rest of her life.
