Crime & Courts

Medicaid fraud conviction nets 2-month sentence

An Anchorage man found guilty of fraudulently billing Medicaid more than $20,000 has been sentenced to two months in prison in addition to restitution and loss of the privilege to bill the federal program.

John H. Choi, 59, was convicted on Friday on two counts: medical assistance fraud and submitting false medical records. The second charge is a felony. Anchorage Superior Court Judge Kevin Saxby sentenced Choi to 20 months in jail but suspended 18 months.

Choi was also ordered to pay $67,435 in restitution, the total amount Medicaid has paid to the former personal care attendant since 2010, according to the Alaska Department of Law.

Medicaid fraud investigators interviewed Choi's wife, according to the department, and learned that he'd been forging her name on timesheets for personal care attendant services while she was out of the country or caring for other patients. He was doing so despite a prior criminal conviction that barred him from that line of work, according to the charges.

Choi submitted $46,875 in Medicaid bills in 2010 under his own name after being notified he wasn't allowed to do so until Oct. 28, 2013. Now, he's permanently barred from billing Medicaid and will be placed on a national exclusion list.

The Department of Law ramped up its efforts to crack down on Medicaid fraud in October 2012. Andrew Peterson, director of the state's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, said the majority of individuals charged since that time have been home-based health care providers, or personal care attendants.

The PCAs work for agencies that bill Medicaid, and at least half the payment the agencies receive -- generally around $24 per hour -- is paid to the attendant.

Choi's conviction brings the number of successfully prosecuted Alaska Medicaid fraud cases to 66 since late 2012, according to the law department.

Jerzy Shedlock

Jerzy Shedlock is a former reporter for Alaska Dispatch News. He left the ADN in 2017.

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