Big Isle woman, daughter sentenced for Medicaid fraud
A Big Island mother and a daughter were fined more than $14,000 and ordered to do community service after pleading guilty Thursday to Medicaid fraud.
Susan Escobar and her daughter, Yolanda Cristina Escoba Hiro plead guilty to second-degree theft and were were sentenced by Circuit Court Judge Glenn Hara.
Escobar, the former office manager of Mastercare, a home health care services company that was contracted by the state to provide home care services to Medicaid recipients in their home, created false progress notes and time sheets, according to state Attorney Gen. Doug Chin.
The notes and time sheets were for work that was never actually performed by Hiro. The fraudulently billed services were for Escobar’s former mother-in-law, a Medicaid recipient, living with Escobar. An investigation revealed that it was impossible for Hiro to provide any services in Hilo since she resided, operated a child care business and held a part-time job at a hotel in Kona.
Chin said “Medicaid funds received by the State of Hawaii from the federal government provide services to people in need and are diminished whenever a provider commits this type of fraud. The Medicaid Fraud Control Unit will continue to vigorously investigate and prosecute these types of cases to the fullest extent of the law.”
Under the terms of a plea agreement, Hara granted the defendants’ request for a deferral and ordered the defendants to pay $7,000 as partial repayment for investigative costs to the Medicaid Special Fund, restitution in the amount of $7,068 and 200 hours of community service work. The defendants paid for the full amount owed for investigative costs and restitution at the time of sentencing.
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14 responses to “Big Isle woman, daughter sentenced for Medicaid fraud”
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“As Avik Roy writes in his new book, How Medicaid Fails the Poor, “OBAMACARE will shove 17 million more Americans into Medicaid, the developed world’s worst health care system.” Thus, over half of the uninsured ACA will allegedly cover will receive nothing but a useless card.”
Can’t blame people for trying to cheat the system…Mahalo OBAMA for making it worse.
Sorry, but fraud in all forms happened before Obama, and will happen after him too. BTW, Roy is way partisan…
“Can’t blame people for trying to cheat the system?” These people were not gaming the system to receive better healthcare, they were lining their own pockets with a resource meant for the poor or disabled. This “system” is based on need and it was not invented by Obama.
Seriously, an inability to blame people like that says something about you.
Sorry but What is it about blaming Obama for everything? Is he to blame when the volcano erupts as well? Talk about giving a little too much credit….
I don’t understand why these crooks were granted a deferral. This was obviously a calculated scam, not a billing error, and the judge is allowing them to stay in business. The amount they paid in restitution is peanuts compared to any penalty they received.
Agree, I’m OK with them paying back and performing community service, but seriously in a few years it would be as though nothing happened. Shame.
Cause this is Hawaii and you can steal thousands, even over $150,000 of taxpayer money like a Charter school principal and get ONLY probation.
That was bad. ONLY probation and pay back ONLY $200 a month with no interest.
should be jail time for these types of theft
“the judge is allowing them to stay in business.”
Nah, they’re out of the Medicare/Medicaid business. A conviction like this results in the perps automatically being excluded from participation in these programs. Not only will they be barred from personal participation, but their names go on a public registry and they can’t be hired by any care provider that participates in Medicare/Medicaid or the provider will also be sanctioned. They’ve basically been blackballed.
Not all women are angels.
Mother/daughter scamming duo. Must be in their DNA.
Just a tiny drop in the oceans of medicaid fraud, but at least they were caught.
It would’ve been useful to include the total dollar amount ripped off by these fraudsters.