As part of ongoing efforts to combat fraud in the home health industry, Attorney General Maura Healey announced today that her office reached a $630,000 settlement with a Chicopee-based home healthcare company and its owners to resolve allegations that they billed the state’s Medicaid program, MassHealth, for services that had not been appropriately authorized by a physician. According to the AG’s Office, Home Care VNA and its owners Constant Ogutt and Shakira Lubega failed to ensure that claims submitted to MassHealth complied with a plan-of-care requirement certifying the services as being medically necessary. Home Care VNA, Ogutt, and Lubega also allegedly knew that they had received overpayments from the state as a result of their submission of claims but made no attempt to notify or return any overpayments to MassHealth. Ogutt and Lubega also own Altranais Home Care, a home healthcare company that agreed to pay $3.1 million in 2020 to settle similar allegations by of falsely billing MassHealth.
