(COLUMBUS, Ohio) — A Boardman woman who ran a home health company in Youngstown is headed to prison for Medicaid fraud and theft, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost announced today. Financial losses to the Ohio Department of Medicaid (ODM) total $63,180.
Carla Clark, 54, was sentenced this morning to six months in prison and three years of probation in the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas. A jury found her guilty of the two felony charges on Feb. 28. She repaid ODM by check during today’s sentencing hearing.
Clark was the operations manager of Caregivers Home Health from 2014 through most of 2017. A review of the company’s 2015 Medicaid billings by Yost’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit identified reimbursements of $40,513 for 1,748 hours of services that nurses failed to provide to a patient. A tip from the patient’s daughter sparked the investigation.
“This patient was in the most vulnerable condition of her life, requiring around-the-clock care and a machine to help her breathe,” Yost said. “Her treatments were medically necessary, but Carla Clark routinely failed to provide staffing for the patient and billed the Department of Medicaid anyway.”
The company’s billing records also revealed Medicaid reimbursements of $22,667 for services provided to the same patient by an unlicensed nurse. That nurse, Carla Edmonds, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of theft in December 2017.
Edmonds, 47, received a suspended 180-day jail sentence, five years of probation and was ordered to pay restitution of $5,000 to ODM. Attorneys with Yost’s Health Care Fraud Section prosecuted both cases.
ODM suspended the company’s provider agreement on Nov. 17, 2017, following Clark’s indictment.
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Dominic Binkley: 614-728-4127
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