Brooklyn-Based Home Health Care Service and Its President Agree to Pay Over $6.4 Million to Settle False Claims Act Suit Alleging Improper Billing Practices

Home Family Care, Inc. (HFC), a Brooklyn-based company that provides home health care services, and Alexander Kiselev, the co-owner and President of HFC, have entered into a civil settlement agreement under which they have agreed to pay $6,415,000 to resolve allegations that they violated the federal and state False Claims Acts by falsely billing Medicaid for home health care services that HFC did not provide to Medicaid recipients.  HFC’s former Vice President, Michael Gurevich, entered into a separate settlement regarding the same allegations. The settlement agreements were approved by United States District Judge Sterling Johnson, Jr.

Richard P. Donoghue, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, announced the settlements.

“When health care providers seek and receive Medicaid funds for services that they never provided, they jeopardize the fiscal integrity of a critical health care program,” stated United States Attorney Donoghue.  “We will hold health care providers accountable for their violations of federal law.”  Mr. Donoghue thanked the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit of the Office of the New York State Attorney General, the Office of the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the New York Office of Field Operations and the Office of Associate Chief Counsel (New York) of U.S. Customs and Border Protection for their assistance in the investigation.

An investigation revealed that, from the time HFC began operating in or about 2008 until at least May 2014, HFC engaged in a fraudulent scheme to enrich itself at the expense of Medicaid by knowingly and systematically billing for home health aide and personal care aid services that were not in fact provided to Medicaid recipients.  To carry out this scheme, HFC directed its employees to deliberately circumvent its own system for verifying the attendance of aides at the homes of Medicaid recipients for whom the aides were allegedly providing care and to deliberately circumvent HFC’s internal controls that purported to ensure that aides were present in the recipients’ homes. 

The allegations were brought to the government’s attention through the filing of a complaint pursuant to the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act.  Under the Act, private citizens can bring suit on behalf of the United States and share in any recovery. 

The United States’ case is being handled by Assistant United States Attorney Elliot M. Schachner of the Office’s Civil Division.

E.D.N.Y. Docket No. 10-CV-2490 (SJ)