Two Brooklyn-based companies defrauded the state's controversial Medicaid home health program out of $68 million, federal prosecutors alleged this week.
Eight indicted fraudsters, including the owners of two adult day care facilities, allegedly orchestrated a multi-year kickback and bribery scheme to defraud state programs, according to an indictment unsealed Wednesday. .
The Consumer Personal Assistance Program (CDPAP), which is said to be rife with fraud, allows New Yorkers with minimal experience to get paid to care for a loved one at home. Hundreds of “middleman” companies essentially act as payroll agents between caregivers and Medicaid, with minimal oversight.
According to the scheme, Zakia Khan and Ahsan Ijaz, owners of Happy Family Social Adult Daycare and Family Social Adult Daycare, are also responsible for one such financial intermediary company, Responsible Care.・It is believed that the company operated a staffing company and was used to process payments for fake services.
The other five – Elaine Antao, Omneah Hamdi, Manal Wassef, Ancil Abbasi and Amran Hashmi – was also charged About their engagement scheme.
All defendants are charged with fraud and conspiracy to collect kickbacks. Khan also faces additional money laundering charges.
If convicted, each could face decades in prison.
“Socialized adult day care and home health care services are intended to assist seniors, but as alleged, the defendants deducted hundreds of thousands of dollars in their business from the Medicaid program,” Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement. It is said that he brazenly changed his behavior to extort $1,000,000.”
“My office is committed to investigating and prosecuting those who loot taxpayer-funded federal health care programs while purporting to provide health care services.”
Governor Kathy Hochul is pushing changes to CDPAP to curb out-of-control spending, waste, fraud and abuse in the program. Albany and Washington paid about $9 billion to support the program in 2023.
Mr. Hochul's plan includes eliminating about 300 intermediaries that federal authorities say were used in the alleged scheme and consolidating the industry under one state-selected company. There is.
The newspaper reported that 1199 SEIU, one of New York's most powerful labor unions, said select companies would remain neutral in unionizing the roughly 250,000 home health aides under the program, and that their salaries would be reduced. We first reported that they were working behind the scenes to insist on an increase. . Experts say such a raise is possible. Costs may increase It's under the program.
Brokers have gone to great lengths in recent months to try to block the deal, including a PR blitz and several ongoing legal battles.
“This is to enact common-sense CDPAP reforms that strengthen the program and ensure that taxpayer dollars go to the home care users and caregivers who need it, not unscrupulous middlemen. This is a great example of why we worked with Congress in 2017,” a spokesperson for Hochul wrote. In a statement.
