Golden Valley Business Owner Pleads Guilty to Defrauding Medicaid

A Minnetonka man who owns and operates Golden Valley-based Universal Home Health pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated identity theft in federal court on Friday.

Prosecutors also say that on May 26, 2009, 56-year-old Mustafa Hassan Mussa, Universal's operator, used the identification of a Medicaid recipient to submit fraudulent bills to Medicaid. The Medicaid recipient was not receiving services from personal car attendants at the business.

  Rondestvedt pleaded guilty in September.  Prosecutors say from Feb. 18, 2008, to December 2010, Rondestvedt submitted false reimbursement claims for personal care services, which resulted in a loss to Medicaid of about $55,000.

In a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office, Jeanne F. Cooney,
Director of Community Relations, says as part of plea agreement, Mussa admitted that he knowingly caused fraudulent billings to be submitted to Medicaid.

Cooney says the fraudulent claims indicated that a personal care attendant was
providing service to a Medicaid recipients when, in fact, there was no evidence of such a service. 

Cooney says the U.S. recovered more than $700,000 to be returned to the Medicaid program in connection with this matter. 

Mussa faces a mandatory penalty of two years in prison.  His employee, Jon Rondestvedt, faces ten years in prison.

In his September plea agreement, Rondestvedt admitted that from February of 2008 through December of 2010, he defrauded Medicaid by submitting false reimbursement claims for personal care services. Rondestvedt agreed to provide and facilitate kickback payments to the family of a Medicaid recipient who did not actually receive the personal care services for which
Universal billed Medicaid.

The Medicaid program provides medical care and services to low-income people who meet certain income and eligibility requirements. Home health care, provided by PCAs, is one of the services reimbursed by Medicaid.

These cases are the result of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Health and Human Services—Office of Inspector General, and the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit at the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office participates in a task force with the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit at the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office that focuses on home health care fraud trends.