A Milwaukee woman is facing 10 charges of health care fraud, as well as 10 other varying fraud charges, after she allegedly sent in false payments to the
Wisconsin Medicaid program in an effort to receive money for services she did not provide to her clients.
Markita Barnes was the owner and operator of
Here For You Prenatal Care Coordination Services LLC (HFY). The company purported to be a prenatal care coordination and childcare coordination company, which billed Wisconsin Medicaid for services it claimed to provide pregnant women and mothers in Milwaukee. The company previously operated at 3775 N. Richards St.
Barnes allegedly submitted bills totaling over $2.5 million, which contained false statements, to Wisconsin Medicaid. After submitting these bills, Wisconsin Medicaid paid Barnes over $2.3 million.
Medicaid is a government program that provides health insurance to low income individuals.
Barnes used those funds to make several personal purchases, including a Mercedes Benz worth $74,000, diamond-crusted pendants and earrings, a Rolex watch, and an Audi truck, according to the indictment.
Beginning in October 2020 through at least December 2021, Barnes would advertise her company on Facebook and encourage women to enroll by offering free baby supplies. She would also offer money to individuals, sometimes up to $100, to sign up for services at HFY -- what’s known as a health care kickback.
It is illegal for anyone to offer, pay, solicit or receive money in exchange for referring Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries to providers that participate in the program, or to arrange for certain services that may be paid for in part or whole by Medicare of Medicaid.
As a part of her scheme, Barnes allegedly incentivized her employees to inflate their billing to Wisconsin Medicaid by tying their earnings to the amount they billed. Barnes told her employees to falsify billing submissions that knowingly misstated the duration, frequency, date, and frequency of services provided, according to the indictment.
For example, the indictment says Barnes claimed she spent two hours helping a customer fill out W-2 tax forms and apply for food stamps, but these services were never provided. Barnes also allegedly lied about helping other customers sign up for parenting classes and setting up appointments with the Women, Infants and Children Program.
“Barnes willfully attempted to prevent, obstruct, mislead, and delay the communication of information and records relating to the scheme, a violation of federal health care offense, by instructing her care coordinators to ‘remind’ their clients that they provided resources and to tell investigators that the information on the progress notes used to support billing Medicaid was true,” according to the indictment.
Upon conviction, Barnes will be forced to forfeit anything she purchased with the money that came from Medicaid and pay back the total amount of funding she illegally obtained.
