Jefferson City Man Sentenced on Charges of Fraudulently Billing Medicaid for Bail Money

ST. LOUIS, MO—Christopher S. Long was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment for health care fraud and ordered to pay restitution of $1,636.00 to Medicaid. Long made false statements to Medicaid, claiming he provided home health care services in the home setting while Long was actually in jail. The purpose of the fraudulent scheme was to steal money for Long’s personal use, including raising money for bail, Acting United States Attorney Michael W. Reap announced today.

According to court documents, Long signed a contract to be a home health care worker on December 16, 2005, and afterwards was approved by the Missouri Medicaid program to provide personal care services to his mother, a Medicaid beneficiary, at her residence. During 2006, Long signed and submitted numerous “personal care assistance service log sheets” to a home health care agency located in Rolla, Missouri. The log sheets purportedly documented the “total hours worked” by Long during two-week pay periods when he was providing personal care services to his mother. Long’s log sheets specifically instructed him to indicate any time his mother spent during the pay period in a hospital or nursing home, when she was out of the home setting, to enable the accurate calculation of any hourly Medicaid reimbursement for Long’s time.

Long attempted to defraud the Missouri Medicaid program by falsely representing that he had provided hourly care services to his mother on specific times and dates when he was either in prison or his mother was in the hospital, meaning that he actually did not provide any care services in the home setting. The purpose of Long’s scheme was to steal money from the Medicaid program for his personal use, including bail money.

CHRISTOPHER S. LONG, Jefferson City, Missouri, pleaded guilty last June to one count of health care fraud, and appeared today for sentencing before United States District Judge Catherine D. Perry.

Reap commended the investigative work performed on the case by the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit of the Missouri Attorney General’s Office, the Office of Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.