Shomanicka Holly, 36, of East Saint Louis, Illinois, was arraigned in federal court after a grand jury returned an indictment charging her with three counts of felony healthcare fraud. The indictment alleges that Holly served as a personal assistant from 2016 to 2019 for a qualified beneficiary enrolled in the Illinois Department of Human Services Home Services Program. The Home Services Program is a Medicaid program in Illinois that provides personal assistants to Medicaid recipients to assist them with general household activities and personal care. It is designed to reduce Medicaid expenditures by avoiding more expensive institutional care, including nursing home care. According to the indictment, Holly submitted false timesheets requesting payment for personal assistant services that she never actually performed because she was working at another job, not caring for the Medicaid recipient. In doing so, Holly allegedly defrauded the program and breached its policies stating that personal assistants “cannot charge [the Home Services Program] for the same hours worked when working another job” and “billing for hours not worked constitutes Medicaid fraud.”
