(Photo: MGN Online)
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – The owner of a home health care service has been convicted of making false claims to the state Medicaid program.
Doreesa Irby, owner of Loving Hearts LLC in Columbus, was sentenced Thursday to five years probation, a 10-month suspended jail sentence and to pay $13,261.06 in restitution, according to Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost’s office.
Irby was convicted in May of Medicaid fraud and forgery, both fifth-degree felonies, after a week-long trial.
Yost said Loving Hearts contracted with the Ohio Department of Medicaid and the Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities to provide in-home care to Medicaid patients with developmental disabilities, and then Irby submitted false timesheets and billed Medicaid for the maximum number of hours regardless of the services Loving Hearts actually provided.
“Facilitating a scam under the guise of a company called ‘Loving Hearts’ is a sick and twisted cynicism,” Yost said in a news release. “People who rely on Medicaid, and the taxpayers who fund Medicaid, deserve honest health care providers with kind hearts, not thieves in the night.”
