We spend a lot of time in our line of work researching and writing about promises public officials don’t keep, so I thought it was important to recognize a story on a promise one public servant has kept.
In the spring of 2010, U.S. Attorney Tim Heaphy, formed a task force to aggressively attack health care fraud in Virginia’s western district.
Today’s 16 month prison sentence handed to the former co-owner of Health Care Virginia, Sandra Pope-McElwain, was a big accomplishment in keeping Heaphy’s promise.
Now, if my research is correct, the feds were already looking at Health Care Virginia before Heaphy’s task force announcement, but that should not diminish this legal victory for investigators, victims, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The federal government placed a $323,000 restitution demand against the business, that means Health Care Virginia basically stole more than $300,000 of *our* money, that’s *taxpayer* money.
Court records show that figure represents the amount of Medicaid payments that went to Health Care Virginia that shouldn’t have.
It makes you wonder how much more fraud is left out there to uncover.
I believe we should all applaud the U.S. Attorney’s Office and federal investigators for stopping a business that wasn’t playing by the rules, hurt its employees financially by abruptly laying them off, and jeopardized the health of its clients.
It’s scary to think what might’ve happened to Health Care Virginia’s clients, all of them unable to fully take care of themselves, if this activity had never come to light.
Posted by Scott Leamon at 07:22 PM. Filed under: leamon •
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