A Michigan home health care agency owner has been convicted in a $1.6 million scheme to defraud Medicare, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
According to a DOJ release, court documents and evidence presented at trial showed Ruby Scott, 55, of Farmington Hills, Mich., owned and operated Delta Home Health Care LLC (Delta). From 2018 through 2021, Scott bribed a discharge nurse at a Detroit hospital to identify Medicare patients and fax their confidential records Delta, unbeknownst to the patients.
Scott had developed the kickback relationship with the hospital discharge nurse at a home health company she had previously co-owned, but she offered the nurse an additional $100 patient to induce her to refer patients to her new company, according to the DOJ. Scott paid the discharge nurse over $130,000 by CashApp, PayPal, check, and cash. Scott used these stolen profiles to bill Medicare for home health services, exploiting the diagnostic and personal information of patients who were unaware their data had been compromised.
The evidence at trial showed that Scott paid the discharge nurse approximately $300 for each patient Scott successfully billed to Medicare, according to the DOJ In billing claims for patients who were obtained through kickbacks, as well as other claims between 2018 and 2024, Scott falsely represented to Medicare that a doctor had certified patients as meeting the Medicare requirements to receive home health services, including being homebound, when evidence proved no doctor had ever evaluated these patients for home health services.
Overall, the DOJ says Scott caused approximately $1.6 million in losses to Medicare.
The jury convicted Scott of five counts of health care fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States and pay illegal health care kickbacks, and four counts of paying illegal health care kickbacks. She is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 24 and faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison as to each health care fraud count, a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison as to each kickback count, and a maximum penalty of five years in prison as to the conspiracy count.