Posted on 08/16/2010 3:23:48 PM PDT by markomalley
TOTOWA — The owner of a now-closed local nursing home pleaded guilty to fraud in Superior Court on Monday, admitting that he improperly billed the state Medicaid program for more than $300,000. Piscataway resident Victor Napenas, 63, entered the plea to third-degree Medicaid fraud in his appearance before Camden County Superior Court Judge Irvin J. Snyder. The nursing home, Valley Rest Nursing Home on Bogert Street, closed in 2007. The state’s recommended sentence is 90 days in jail and three years of probation. Napenas will have to pay back the $302,877 sum plus $45,263 in penalties and $31,859 in taxes, and will be banned from providing Medicaid services for eight years. Sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 8. He “treated the facility’s Medicaid cost report like his own blank check,” Acting Insurance Fraud Prosecutor Riza Dagli said in a press release from the state. The investigation began in 2007, when the state Department of Health and Senior Services found “severe deficiencies” in patient care at Valley Rest. Napenas voluntarily closed the nursing home, and a subsequent audit by the state found “many irregularities on the facility’s 2005 cost report submitted to Medicaid,” according to the press release. Napenas could not provide documentation for $302,877 that he had billed to Medicaid.
According to the state, Napenas and his wife used business credit cards to pay for more than $100,000 in personal expenses such as trips to the Philippines, dance lessons and family dinners, and then were reimbursed by Medicaid. A phone number listed for Napenas was out of service Monday and he could not be reached. The Medicaid program, funded by the state and federal governments, provides health care and prescription coverage to low-income individuals.
Tip of the iceberg, and much more to come thanks to Obamacare.
“trips to the Philippines, dance lessons and family dinners”...sounds vaguely familiar.
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