Mboutchock Kabiwa a/k/a Eugenie Bakari or Eugenie Kabiwa, age 45, of Silver Spring, Maryland, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud in connection with a scheme to pay bribes and kickbacks to Medicaid beneficiaries to induce the beneficiaries to visit her company Holy Health Care Services, LLC (“Holy Health”), a mental health services provider with locations in Washington, DC. According to her plea agreement, Kabiwa and a co-conspirator owned and operated Holy Health. Holy Health entered into Medicaid Provider Agreements with the District of Columbia’s Department of Health Care Finance (“DHCF”), to provide healthcare services to DC Medicaid recipients. Holy Health was certified by the District of Columbia’s Department of Behavioral Health (“DBH”) to provide mental health services as a freestanding clinic and as a Mental Health and Rehabilitation Services (“MHRS”) provider. As a certified MHRS provider, Holy Health had authority to provide and bill for a variety of mental health services including “community support” — a service for which community support workers (“CSWs”) provide rehabilitative and educational support to mental health patients both in clinical settings and in the community. Holy Health documented the services provided to patients utilizing an electronic healthcare system called the Integrated Care Management System (“ICAMS”), then submitted invoices for those services to DHCF, which processed the invoices and paid Holy Health.
As detailed in the plea agreement, Kabiwa and her co-conspirators paid bribes and kickbacks to Medicaid beneficiaries to induce the beneficiaries to visit Holy Health, and paid bribes and kickbacks to others in exchange for referring Medicaid beneficiaries to Holy Health for mental health services. The co-conspirators caused Medicaid beneficiaries to be transported, often by van, to Holy Health’s North Capitol location. Medicaid beneficiaries who visited Holy Health were required to sign in and received a cash bribe — generally $5 or $10 — in exchange for visiting Holy Health. To conceal the nature of these payments, Kabiwa directed Holy Health employees to falsely describe these payments as a transportation stipend, even when Holy Health transported the beneficiaries or when beneficiaries were not incurring transportation expenses. At other times during the conspiracy, Kabiwa and her co-conspirators attempted to conceal the illegal bribe payments to beneficiaries as payments from the Agatha Foundation, a nonprofit that Kabiwa founded. Kabiwa provided front-desk employees of Holy Health with sign-in sheets containing Agatha Foundation letterhead to create the false appearance that Agatha was making the payments. Kabiwa admitted that she and a co-conspirator provided funds to Holy Health employees to fund the kickback and bribe payments.
