Three nurses found guilty in health care fraud

A total of four nurses from On Call Staffing Inc. have pled guilty in the U.S. District Court in Jackson to conspiring to commit health care fraud. Three of those nurses were from Hardeman County.     
Nicole Douglass of Whiteville, Carla Surratt of Bolivar and Nakesha Stephens of Bolivar all pled guilty to their role in failure to provide adequate services to a 12 year old with a tracheotomy and ventilator but billed TennCare as if the services were provided.
According to court documents and the plea agreements, Josephine Coach’s son (of Somerville) was 12 years old and in a wheelchair, he suffered from gastrointestinal problems that required frequent monitoring, required a ventilator for breathing assistance and had a tracheotomy. The doctor ordered 19 hours of daily nursing care, which the child received through TennCare. Nurses with On Call Staffing Inc., a subcontractor to Functional Independence Home Care Inc., were supposed to provide the 19 hours of daily home health services ordered by the doctor.
“The defendants’ scheme of foregoing the medical needs of a severely disabled minor in exchange for financial gain at taxpayer expense is shocking and reprehensible,” U.S. Attorney Edward L. Stanton III, said. “Each defendant, including the minor’s mother, will now be held accountable at sentencing.”
The scheme, according to court documents, continued from January 2009 to August 2011 when Coach knowingly and intentionally conspired with the nurses to defraud TennCare for services never provided to Coach’s son. Coach and the nurses arrived at an agreement, according to legal documentation, where the nurses would not show up for their appointed shifts but still turn in time sheets as if they had worked. In exchange, the nurses would split their pay for the shifts with Coach. As a result of the scheme, TennCare paid over $400,000 for nursing services that were never provided to the child, who later died in April at the age of 12.

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