A federal judge sentenced the owner and operator of Harris Therapy Inc. to 70 months in prison Tuesday for billing the U.S. military’s health care program hundreds of thousands of dollars for speech language therapy for military children that was never provided.
Senior U.S. District Judge Helen Gillmor also ordered Sheila Harris, 53, to repay the Defense Health Agency, which runs the TRICARE program, $403,079 and to pay an additional $24,000 to the government to cover some of the cost of prosecuting her. The additional money is for the travel expenses of government witnesses who testified against Harris in trial.
Gillmor denied Harris’ request to be released on bond pending appeal.
Harris has been in custody since May when a federal jury found her guilty of 11 counts of wire fraud, three counts of making false statements relating to health care matters and two counts of aggravated identity theft.
The charges accuse her of charging TRICARE for two days of speech language therapy when only one was provided, charging for services when her speech language therapist was on maternity leave, altering and directing others to alter case notes, assuming the identities of the therapist and her patients to make the false claims and lying during a 2012 TRICARE audit of her billings.
Harris declined to make a statement before getting sentenced. Her lawyer, Ronald W. Chapman II, told Gillmor that Harris double-billed because sending speech therapists on house calls, as her business did, was not profitable, and she wanted to continue serving the community.
“This was a means to keep her operation going,” he said.
Harris was a licensed physical therapist. In addition to speech language therapy, her company provided physical, occupational and massage therapy at its Kapiolani Boulevard and Aiea clinics.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Rebecca Ann Perlmutter said there are other speech therapists on Oahu who make house calls.
“You don’t get to lie and cheat and steal and use other people to keep your business running or to buy a condo in Hawaii Kai,” she said.
Perlmutter says there is a wait list for speech therapy and that Harris took short cuts to tap into a ready stream of income. She said falsifying case records harms patients by denying or delaying needed care and leads to inaccurate assessments.
The government sued Harris for civil penalties in connection with the false TRICARE claims. That case is still pending.
