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The Attorney General’s office filed charges against a Grays Ferry husband and wife for allegedly committing Medicaid fraud.
The Harrisburg-issued revelation states Nola Pettiford-Hollis and Cecil Hollis, of the 2600 block of Gerritt Street, billed a state home health care program while both were incarcerated. According to criminal complaints filed in support of the charges, Pettiford-Hollis received the assignment as the direct care worker for her partner under the Department of Human Services Attendant Care Waiver Program. The Medicaid-paid program is meant to provide personal care services to eligible individuals in a community-based setting to prevent placement in an institution or nursing home, with the direct care worker and the client required to sign and verify timesheets related to the care.
Investigators reviewed sheets in which Pettiford-Hollis claimed she had provided services to her husband for roughly a six-week period in which one or both of them were in prison, leading to the payment of approximately $2,915 for services never rendered. She supposedly submitted other sheets in which she claimed to be providing care for Hollis when she was actually working for the School District of Philadelphia, with this resulting in payment of approximately $7,9993 for never-rendered services. Investigators also noted one cannot, as a direct care worker, provide care for a spouse under the waiver program and added that nowhere on the applications did the two reveal their status as man and wife. The alleged combined fraud led to approximately $53,744 in Medical Assistance payments that should not have occurred, causing authorities to issue five counts of Medicaid fraud, seven counts of theft by deception, 12 counts of tampering with public records, and one count each of criminal use of a communication facility and criminal conspiracy to commit theft by deception. The Grays Ferry dwellers have a preliminary hearing set for May 12.
