Janet Olatimbo Akindipe, 62, of Laurel, Maryland, pleaded guilty to defrauding the DC Medicaid program out of more than a quarter million dollars. Akindipe has worked as a full-time employee for the US Department of Health and Human Services since March 2013. At various times between November 2014 and June 2020, she also was employed by six different home health agencies to serve as a personal care aide for DC Medicaid beneficiaries. Akindipe was supposed to document the care she provided to the Medicaid beneficiaries on timesheets and then submit the timesheets to the home health agencies, which would in turn bill Medicaid for the services that she rendered. Between January 2015 and June 2020, Akindipe caused the DC Medicaid Program to issue payments totaling $269,808 for services that she did not render. As part of her fraud scheme, she submitted false timesheets to different home health agencies purporting that she provided personal care aide services that she did not provide. She claimed she provided such services during times when she actually was working her shift at the National Institutes of Health. She claimed to work more than twenty hours in a given day on more than 300 occasions. She also claimed to provide personal care aide services in the District of Columbia on days when she was not even in the United States, but traveling abroad instead. Akindipe acknowledged paying kickbacks to Medicaid beneficiaries to get them to sign timesheets saying she provided services that she did not actually render.
