MM Curator summary
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[MM Curator Summary]: Sharon Johnson operated a fraudulent group home, stole resident pension funds and billed for deceased residents for 8 months before reporting them dead. You paid for every penny of this with your W-2s.
Clipped from: https://www.wric.com/news/local-news/chesterfield-county/chester-woman-sentenced-for-medicaid-healthcare-fraud/
A photo of a Medicaid form. (Photo: MGN)
CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. — A Chester woman was sentenced on Thursday, July 7 for several charges relating to healthcare fraud.
58-year-old Sharon Johnson has been sentenced to 51 months in prison for the conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud, healthcare fraud and wire fraud, according to the the U.S. Department of Justice .
These charges center around Johnson’s owning and operating of an unlicensed group home under “Sharon Y. Johnson & Associates” (SYJA) for seven years.
This organization claimed to provide personal and home healthcare services, allowing those on Medicaid to remain in-home rather than enter a nursing or group home. All of these services were paid for by the individuals’ Medicaid eligibility.
The unlicensed facility was located within her own home in Chester — a three bedroom home that the DOJ reports regularly housed up to a half-dozen residents.
According to the DOJ, Johnson would bill Medicaid for services she did not provide her patients. She would also submit documents to the Virginia Retirement System (VRS) to allow her access to their pensions.
Furthermore, the DOJ reports that Johnson fraudulently collected a now-deceased patient’s VRS pension payments for at least 8 months after her death before she eventually reported the death. She did this by obtaining “Medical Power of Attorney” over the resident.
Johnson pleaded guilty to these charges in December 2022, and was originally meant to be sentenced in April of this year.
More information on this case can be found on wric.com the Department of Justice’s website.