The former owner of a Chicago home healthcare company has been sentenced to a year in federal prison for fraudulently obtaining $1.2 million from Medicare through a phony billing scheme. Henry Smilie was the owner and Chief Executive Officer of Home Physician Services LLC, which arranged in-home healthcare services for patients who were purportedly elderly and homebound. From 2012 to 2014, Smilie participated in a scheme to defraud Medicare by submitting approximately $1.97 million in false claims, causing the federally funded program to pay Smilie’s company at least $1.2 million. The false claims pertained to “care plan oversight” services that were either not rendered or involved treatment that was far less intricate than portrayed in the claims submitted by Smilie’s company to Medicare. Smilie, 61, of Lake Zurich, Ill., pleaded guilty to a federal healthcare fraud charge. Smilie was also ordered to pay $1.2 million in restitution to Medicare.
