Former Wellcare Chief Executive Officer Sentenced for Health Care Fraud

[bpositive]

http://m.fbi.gov/#http://www.fbi.gov/tampa/press-releases/2014/former-wellcare-chief-executive-officer-sentenced-for-health-care-fraud?utm_campaign=email-Immediate&utm_medium=email&utm_source=fbi-in-the-news&utm_content=322875Former Wellcare Chief Exhttp://m.fbi.gov/#http://www.fbi.gov/tampa/press-releases/2014/former-wellcare-chief-executive-officer-sentenced-for-health-care-fraud?utm_campaign=email-Immediate&utm_medium=email&utm_source=fbi-in-the-news&utm_content=322875ecutive Officer Sentenced for Health Care Fraud

U.S. Department of Justice
May 19, 2014

Office of Public Affairs
[phone]/TDD [phone]
WASHINGTON—Former WellCare chief executive officer Todd S. Farha, 45, of Tampa, Florida, was sentenced today in the Middle District of Florida to serve 36 months in prison for defrauding the Florida Medicaid program.

Acting Assistant Attorney General David A. O’Neil of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and United States Attorney A. Lee Bentley, III of the Middle District of Florida made the announcement after Farha was sentenced by U.S. District Judge James S. Moody Jr.

Farha was convicted by a federal jury in the Middle District of Florida on June 10, 2013, of two counts of health care fraud.

According to court records and evidence at trial, Farha and others orchestrated a scheme to defraud the Florida Medicaid program from the summer of 2003 through the fall of 2007 by making fraudulent statements relating to expenditures for behavioral health care services.

WellCare operates health maintenance organizations (HMOs) in several states providing services through government-sponsored health care benefit programs like Medicaid. Two WellCare HMOs operating in Florida, StayWell and Healthease, contracted with the Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA), the Florida agency that administers the Medicaid program, to provide Florida Medicaid program recipients with an array of services, including behavioral health services.

[GeorgeGist]

1. The Onion?

[King_Klonopin]

3. I doubt it.

Medicare and Medicaid funds for mental health are abused
and embezzled all the time.

I believe that CEOs, MDs and hospitals don't view it as
a "crime" to submit fraudulent charges because the money
comes from the anonymous, amorphous and hapless
"government" which they can rob with impugnity -- like
picking apples from the tree of a stranger.

[valerief]

2. I guess Florida knows who its next governor will be. nt

[Stuart G]

4. Here is a link from the Tampa Bay Times.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/criminal/judge-sentences-former-wellcare-execs-to-prison-in-medicaid-fraud/2180459