ST. LOUIS – The owner of a home healthcare company was sentenced to 18 months in prison Tuesday for defrauding the Missouri Medicaid Program and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs out of $210,000.U.S. District Judge Maria A.
Lanahan also ordered Natavia Boyd-Wells, 42, to repay the money.While owner of Touch of the Heart Home Health Care LLC, Boyd-Wells submitted hundreds of fraudulent reimbursement claims to the Missouri Medicaid Program and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Community Care Network. Missouri Medicaid and the VA pay for home healthcare services so patients can remain in their homes instead of hospitals and nursing homes.Boyd-Wells submitted claims for services on dates when the veterans were in the hospital and could not have received home services. She also submitted claims knowing services were not provided and that she did not have any documentation of the services.In February of 2022, Missouri Medicaid officials conducting an audit requested documentation of the services that Boyd-Wells claimed were provided to a Medicaid patient. No documentation existed so Boyd-Wells caused fraudulent documentation to be submitted to Medicaid in response to their request.Boyd-Wells pleaded guilty in February to one count of wire fraud.The Department of Veterans Affairs, Office of Inspector General and the Missouri Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit investigated the case.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Derek Wiseman is prosecuting the case.