Marion-based therapist charged with Medicaid fraud

Marion-based therapist charged with Medicaid fraud

Preferred Family Healthcare fraud probe uncovers more malfeasance

From the Arkansas News Service

www.arns.org The attorney general’s office announced Tuesday another charge related to alleged fraud by a former employee of Preferred Family Healthcare, the former provider of services tied up in multiple criminal charges and investigations.

This one was small change, relatively speaking.

Kandice Robinson, 33, of a mental health therapist, is accused of billing Medicaid for $4,950 for services not provided between Aug. 15 and Nov. 1, 2017.

Robinson, who worked in Marion, has been charged with one felony count of Medicaid fraud. The attorney general’s Medicaid fraud division has picked up a continuing investigation of a federal probe that has already led to federal convictions and additional charges. Here are some of the most notable, with other charges pending in state court.

According to online records, a warrant in the case was issued in November and she was arraigned Dec.

18. Tuesday’s news release from the office of Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge did not explain why the charge was announced at this time.

“Robinson is another Preferred Family Healthcare employee accused of lying and charging Medicaid for services she did not provide,” said Attorney General Rutledge. “People cheating the Medicaid system are stealing from taxpayers and hurting the system, which is designed to protect Arkansas’s most vulnerable. I will not tolerate this behavior as the Attorney General.”

The case first made headlines last June when the state Human Services Department and the Office of Medicaid Inspector General suspended Preferred Family Healthcare from the Medicaid program in the wake of former employee Robin Raveendran’s arrest at that time.

The suspension has been in effect since that time.

Preferred Family Healthcare received about $33 million in Medicaid funds in 2016 and 2017 In addition to cutting off the flow of Medicaid money — most of which comes from the federal government — DHS also exercised termination clauses in its contracts with Preferred Family Healthcare for oth- er, non-Medicaid services around the state, including substance abuse treatment, youth services and therapeutic foster care. Those contracts total some $7.4 million, a spreadsheet provided by DHS indicated.

Preferred Family Healthcare, a nonprofit based in Springfield, Missouri, became a giant player in Arkansas in recent years as it has acquired several other providers. (It also operates in four five other states.) The nonprofit has come under intense scrutiny recently as a wave of federal plea deals have revealed extensive bribery allegations involving Preferred Family Healthcare executives and multiple Arkansas legislators of both parties. DHS has continued to work with the provider until today’s news broke about Raveendran — who formerly worked as the Medicaid Program Integrity director at DHS. (The agency’s Program Integrity Unit later became the Office of Medicaid Inspector General.) DHS and the Inspector General cut off Preferred Family Healthcare, creating a major headache for the state. Preferred Family Healthcare operates 47 sites around the state, many of them in rural communities with few other provider options, and it employs some 4,000 people statewide.

DHS has been working since last summer to disentangle Preferred Family Healthcare from its network of providers while also attempting to avoid gaps in essential services in rural Arkansas, from mental health care to substance abuse treatment. DHS said it’s been quietly working for months to find providers that can replace Preferred Family Healthcare.

“In most locations, providers have been identified who can expand services into these areas, and it is DHS’s intent to work with those providers to transition existing beneficiaries.

DHS anticipates that the transition of services and termination of current Preferred Family Healthcare contracts will be completed within a 30-60 day time period,” DHS said.

The agency has allowed certain Preferred Family Healthcare sites to keep receiving Medicaid reimbursements “for a shortterm limited duration” in certain geographic areas in which Preferred Family Healthcare is the only provider.