A nationwide crackdown on health care fraud has led to charges against two people involved with a Winamac ambulance service. Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill says his office’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit took part in 12 of those investigations in Indiana.
One had to do with a Winamac company called Transport Loving Care, doing business as Alliance EMS. Michael Wilson and Jaqueline “Jay” Podell are accused of seeking thousands of dollars in Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements for ambulance transportation of dialysis patients between 2010 and 2014.
However, the patients in question weren’t actually bed-confined or incapable of walking, meaning they weren’t eligible for ambulance transportation, according to the charging information provided by the Attorney General’s Office. When employees raised questions, they were allegedly told “it doesn’t concern you,” that the company wasn’t going to bill Medicare, or that Medicare had a “rural exemption” to its medical necessity requirement.
Instead, Wilson and Podell are accused of falsely representing the patients’ physical conditions and abilities to make it seem as through they qualified. They allegedly told employees not to use the word “walked” in run sheets for the dialysis patients.
Wilson and Podell face charges of health care fraud, Medicaid health care fraud, and conspiracy to commit health care fraud.
