{"id":97096,"date":"2020-03-16T11:36:03","date_gmt":"2020-03-16T15:36:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=97096"},"modified":"2020-03-16T11:36:03","modified_gmt":"2020-03-16T15:36:03","slug":"va-employee-convicted-in-19-million-home-health-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=97096","title":{"rendered":"VA employee convicted in $19 million home health fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nVA employee faces long prison term after conviction for home healthcare scam.<\/em><\/p>\n

Nice little crew, defrauding the VA for a large sum in a short time. Glad the VA caught on pretty quickly and slammed this one down. Up to 20 years and $2M in fines just doesn’t seem enough.<\/p>\n

Todd South<\/strong><\/p>\n

A 60-year-old Colorado Veterans Administration employee now faces up to 20 years in federal prison on charges connected to a home health scam that bilked $19 million from the VA in a year.<\/p>\n

Following an eight-day trial a jury found Joseph Prince guilty on counts of felony health care fraud, conspiracy, payment of illegal kickbacks, money laundering and conflict of interest, according to a justice department statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Prince worked as a beneficiary provider relationships specialist with the VA\u2019s Spina Bifida Health Care Benefits Program. The program covers medical needs for children of certain veterans of both the Korea and Vietnam wars afflicted with Spina Bifida.<\/p>\n

He worked for the VA call center in Denver, Colorado and spoke with health care providers and their beneficiaries or families on health care needs and reimbursement.<\/p>\n

Prince signed up family members of the program\u2019s beneficiaries as home health contractors with \u201csham home health entities\u201d run by Prince\u2019s associates.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo steal from a program that is intended to help our veterans and their children who suffer from serious medical conditions is reprehensible,\u201d said U.S. Attorney Jason Dunn. \u201cMr. Prince was also harming the American taxpayers and will now pay a significant price for his actions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though he knew that the entities were not authorized providers by the VA, he still encouraged the family members to submit their bills and include bills for services either not provided or not allowed by the VA, according to court documents.<\/p>\n

Prince then took payment from the home health entities for his referrals, otherwise known as \u201ckickbacks.\u201d<\/p>\n

His referrals led to nearly $20 million in VA payments to the agencies, which were run by associates that included his wife, brother-in-law, half sister and friends.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m thinking one of his associates copped a plea for a lighter sentence. Read the rest here: Military Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VA employee faces long prison term after conviction for home healthcare scam. Nice little crew, defrauding … VA employee convicted in $19 million home health fraud<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":657,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[213,185,15,86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-your-tax-dollars-at-work","category-crime","category-legal","category-veteran-health-care"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/657"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=97096"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97099,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97096\/revisions\/97099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=97096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=97096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=97096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}