Mankato woman accused of $400K Medicaid fraud

[TexasTowelie]

MANKATO — A Mankato woman is accused of fraudulently obtaining more than $417,000 through two different Medicaid schemes involving a personal health care business over about six years.

Rebecca Swanson, 50, was charged Monday with 16 felony counts of theft by false representation and two felony counts of medical assistance fraud, according to a criminal complaint filed in Blue Earth County District Court.

The charges resulted from an investigation by the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit of the state Attorney General's Office. Swanson, an owner of a Medicaid provider called Mybeck, obtained payments from the Medicaid program by submitting false claims to the state Department of Human Services and to UCare, a publicly funded Prepaid Medical Assistance Plan, according to the complaint. The charges say she engaged in two separate fraudulent schemes.

In the first, she is accused of submitting false claims for personal care assistant services under the provider number of someone who had passed a background check. In fact, the person associated with the provider number used in the claims was not the person who provided the services and in most cases the person who provided the services was not qualified to serve as a personal care assistant, according to the charges. In total, she received $130,029 in profits through this scheme, the charges say.

Read more: http://www.mankatofreepress.com/news/local_news/mankato-woman-accused-of-k-medicaid-fraud/article_d328acee-581e-11e6-be94-5f4307d1eaf8.html

[MFM008]

1. making people who really need it

look bad, and giving the gop talking points.

[TexasTowelie]

2. The GOP does have valid talking points about Medicare and Medicaid fraud,

but the overwhelming number of stories that I read about concern provider fraud rather than recipient fraud. The government could help reduce the fraudulent activity by publishing guidelines to recipients about what to look for and what questions to ask.