Thursday, August 30, 2012

5 steps U.S. states can take to combat Medicaid fraud


5 steps U.S. states can take to combat Medicaid fraud


As states across the country work to expand Medicaid and build health insurance exchanges, one challenge they will surely face is fraud.
The numbers surrounding fraud in the federal government are almost too large to measure, but consider this one: the amount of fraud uncovered and returned by a single U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) program (the Federal Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control Program) averages more than $1 billion dollars a year.
To put that in perspective, the total annual profit for Facebook — which just passed 800 million users — is about the same. With more people entering the health care market and more money in the system, the opportunity for fraud will increase dramatically. Leaders must take steps today to make sure that people aren’t receiving benefits in multiple states, gaming the system or exploiting information gaps to their own advantage.
In the past, program integrity has been used as a political football. One team argues that benefits programs should be open and easily accessible to the citizen, while the other argues for greater efforts to prove eligibility and reduce fraud. Today, technology has resolved this contradiction, providing organizations with the tools they need to both improve the user experience and protect against abuse. Just as law enforcement agents can run background checks, technology is now available to test whether beneficiaries and providers are who they say they are, answering questions such as:
  • Where has this individual been covered before?
  • What might have occurred in other states of residence?
  • What are the risk factors?
Big data and the cloud enable these insights, but the key to this technology isn’t actually technology at all: it’s information. The issue with the Affordable Care Act and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) is that information within their constituent parts is often siloed.
We all know what siloed information means for the citizen because we are citizens ourselves. You fill out a form with your insurance provider. And then a form at the doctor’s office. And then a form with your specialist. And another one for your treatment. Each form asks basically the same questions in the same guise, and each one is sending the same message: we don’t share information. Could you imagine this in other industries?
You walk into a restaurant and the waiter takes your order. Then the runner comes out and asks you what you ordered so he can fetch it from the kitchen. Then an attendant comes by and asks you what you ate so she can draw up the check. A meal like that would be a maddening experience, but it would also be prone to fraud, because nobody would know if you were telling the truth.
Health care today is similarly siloed. It is still too easy for fraudulent providers to move between states, and this problem will become even more pronounced as the health care law is implemented. To combat this, states should take the following steps:
  1. Think Comprehensively: The first impulse in tackling a complicated law like the ACA is to break it up into more manageable parts, dividing it among various stakeholders and tasking them with specific actions. States must first think comprehensively about how the various pieces of the system work together, however, so they don’t duplicate efforts.
  2. Avoid Silos: Security concerns and management divisions encourage organizations to put information in discrete silos. Unfortunately, the end result is often a lack of coordination and visibility, leading to greater instances of fraud. It’s critical that states make concerted efforts at this early stage to ensure that information standards are propagated across their health care systems, so that simple things such as file-format and data fields are machine-readable. Health insurance exchanges, for example, should not be set up independently but, instead, linked to Medicaid information systems.
  3. Reduce Complication: Have you ever gotten into an argument playing a board game and had to consult the back of the box? More complexity and more rules mean more opportunities to cheat. States should think from the user perspective and utilize technology to streamline the eligibility process while maintaining program integrity.
  4. Stop Pay-and-Chase: Hunting down fraudulent claims after they’ve been disbursed takes additional time and money. States should implement active claiming systems that analyze and model risk before payments go out the door, stopping the pay-and-chase model in its tracks.
  5. Make Analytics Count: Both the ACA and HITECH multiply the amount of data that states must manage. Creating systems that can handle these big data environments is only the first step. With the right data quality standards, states can leverage analytics to reduce costs across the system. They’ll be able to see where funds are being spent and better match treatments to real outcomes.
When the government becomes actively engaged in fighting fraud, the effects can be astounding. After widespread fraud was suspected in Medicare claims for durable medical equipment (DME) in Florida, for instance, a partnership of federal and state agencies launched the South Florida Strike Force in 2007. Not only did the program uncover nearly $200 million in fraud within its first two years, it drastically reduced the amount of claims submitted across the state – from $2.76 billion down to $1 billion in 12 months alone.
How did they do it? By sharing information across traditional silos and reducing program vulnerabilities. To a large extent, the ACA offers states a clean slate to design a system without these vulnerabilities. Leveraging the right technologies and sharing information allows states to turn what was a controversial law into a meaningful and effective health care system.

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Sunday, August 26, 2012

SCOTUS Asked To Consider Foster Kids Civil Rights

In a nutshell the Children's Advocacy Institute filed a question to SCOTUS on the opinion of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on why foster kids have no civil rights in federal court.

This may put a damper on future Children's Rights court cases.

There is so much conflict of interest surrounding state judicial activism in child welfare, there is no possible way for a foster child to seek relief in a state court.  It would be like snitching on your buddies because it was a state judicial determination on placement which is the authorization for the release of federal funds to reimburse the costs related to the care of the court ward.

SCOTUS must take on the question of abstention for the simple fact that the Interstate Compact on the Placement of a Child comes into multi-jurisdictional play making the venue proper.

Then we have the issue of the State Attorney General.  The Attorney General is the one who is charged with the prosecutorial duty to conduct a child abuse case, yet, the Attorney General advocates for its contractual arms of the individuals who are committing the harms for which the foster child has approached federal jurisdiction for relief.  Lest not ignore the Attorney General's contemporaneous advisement function.

This particular writ focuses on representation of children.  I would like to know who is going to hold the state responsible for not doing what it agreed to do.

How is it this substantial conflict of interest is allowed to thrive?  It was never intended to be this way.  Who would every question the execution of a state's top law enforcement officer?  I guess CAI will.


CAI Submits Writ of Certiorari Petition to US Supreme Court

On Wednesday, July 11, 2012 the Children’s Advocacy Institute, together with co-counsel Winston & Strawn, filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court asking it to rule on a foster child’s ability to seek relief in federal court.    The petition, known as a Writ of Certiorari, urges the Supreme Court to decide whether it was appropriate for a federal court to refuse to hear a case brought by foster children.
In March of this year, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals entered an opinion in the case of E.T. et al., v. Tani Cantil-Sakauye, which basically bars foster children from turning to the federal courts for relief when the state systems designed to protect them from abuse and neglect have failed, often because they are overburdened.
“It is unconscionable” says Robert Fellmeth, Executive Director of the Children’s Advocacy Institute and an attorney on the case.  “It is ridiculous to require foster children to seek redress in the state courts.  Particularly in a case like this where the underlying complaint is that the state courts themselves, and in particular, the State Supreme Court, have let these kids down by not providing them with attorneys who can adequately represent them in their state court proceedings.”
Fellmeth added: “This case represents a categorical abdication – a walkaway from foster kids and their due process and statutory rights. The Ninth Circuit holds, bizarrely, that an action simply to reject 388 kids per attorney as an excessive caseload purportedly cannot even be heard at all, since it represents an ‘intrusion’ into the state court system.”
“But this is why the federal courts exist,” said Fellmeth, “to provide a check when the states engage in egregious, unlawful, unconstitutional state action – including state courts.
Federal courts are often the appropriate forum for seeking redress when systemic failures have harmed foster children, because many aspects of the state systems designed to protect foster children are based on federal requirements.  When state systems are not meeting mandated federal requirements, foster children have in the past been able to turn to federal courts for assistance.
The Ninth Circuit found that because foster children are involved in state court judicial proceedings, a federal court cannot consider any of their claims.  The Ninth Circuit reasoned that if the federal court ruled on the claims of the foster children, it would necessarily “intrude upon the state’s administration of its government, and more specifically, its court system.”
The ruling by the Ninth Circuit purported to build upon previous Supreme Court decisions holding that where a state court is handling a matter, a federal court should not issue a decision that would undermine the validity of the state court decision.  This line of reasoning, referred to as the abstention doctrine, has been read narrowly in some jurisdictions but very broadly in the Second, Fifth, Sixth, Tenth Circuits, and now Ninth Circuits.  This decision in the Ninth Circuit, in fact, is one of the broadest interpretations of the abstention doctrine stretching beyond the Supreme Court’s intent and purpose behind the doctrine and closes the federal court doors to foster children.
“This holding applies and elevates ‘abstention’ – the radical doctrine that whatever the facts or the degree of violation, the state may do what it will.” Fellmeth called the decision “one of the most dangerous self-abnegation opinions in recent decades. It represents the strong empathy lines of judges for their colleagues on the state bench, who are here elevated to “above the law” status, rather than for foster kids who are parented by these state courts and have no other redress.”
The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule on whether or not it will hear the case in September of this year.
SCOTUS Foster Child Petition On Civil RightsVoting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

State Secrecy Of Child Welfare Deaths In The U.S.

This report eludes direct mention of children in foster care, juvenile justice and mental health programs who die or who come close to dying from abuse and neglect but it does so in a very cunning manner by raising the question of secrecy.

Still, the Children's Advocacy Institute has taken on the daunting task of questioning the archaic institution of child welfare.  I encourage everyone to read this brilliant report.
State Secrecy And Child Deaths In The U.S.

This is why there is secrecy.Stop Child Medicaid Fraud Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

Saturday, August 25, 2012

Children's Rights Needs To Rake Massachusetts Over The Coals

New Reports Show Massachusetts Failing to Protect Children in Foster Care

Children’s Rights: Thousands of young lives endangered due to lack of oversight within child welfare agency

Want to know why?  Click here

Do not believe me?  Click here to read how the feds caught Massachusetts in a $47 million Medicaid administrative hustle.

All this happened under the stewardship of Mitt Romney.

(Boston, MA) — A massive review of Massachusetts foster care shows that nearly one in five children who have been in state care for at least two years have suffered confirmed abuse or neglect — all while in the custody of the state Department of Children and Families (DCF), according to one of five reports issued by independent child welfare policy experts and released today by national advocacy group Children’s Rights and local counsel. All rapes and beatings were paid for by tax dollars.

“Far too many children in Massachusetts remain at risk of maltreatment even after they enter the protection of the state’s child welfare system,” said Marcia Robinson Lowry, founder and executive director of Children’s Rights. “These new reports further underscore the critical need to overhaul as it fails to meet its moral and legal duty to keep kids in foster care safe from further harm.”  One would be led to believe that after decades of throwing money into a dysfunctional system which only resulted in an increase of systemic corruption of dysfunctionality, there would be some semblance of common sense to realize what is being witnesses is a classic text book example of the term "sunken costs".

A report that reviewed case files of more than 480 children shows that is failing to meet its own policies and performance targets. The findings are consistent with federal studies that rank Massachusetts among the bottom 10 child welfare systems in the United States when it comes to ensuring children are safe in foster care and have stable placements.

Additional reports issued today examined the day-to-day performance of  These in-depth studies show that the state’s foster care system is harming children as a result of systemic dysfunction in several key areas:

  • DCF social workers are not consistently making required monthly visits to children, violating DCF policy and federal standards. 
  • DCF workers fail to make more than a quarter of the monthly visits to children required under federal law and  More than 25 percent of approved foster homes do not receive required annual reassessments or license renewals in a timely manner, and nearly 15 percent of new kin placements do not receive timely home studies to assure safety.
  • DCF has not developed an adequate contract monitoring system to supervise and assess the performance of private child placement agencies or private institutional living facilities despite the fact the state refers approximately 60 percent of children in foster care to such placements.
  • DCF is among the bottom 10 systems in the nation when it comes to keeping children in stable placements; and studies conducted in 2011 reveal that children in state custody are shuffled between foster homes at extremely high rates. Two named plaintiffs had more than 20 placements and three others had between eight and 12 placements.
  • The agency falls in the bottom third of foster care systems in the country when it comes to finding permanent homes for children in a timely manner.
  • Among a sample of children in care sometime between July 1, 2009 and June 30, 2010, more than 18 percent who were reunified with their parents reentered DCF care due repeat abuse or neglect.  Pay attention to the time frame of July 1, 2009 and June 39, 2010.  There was another "study" which should be properly referred to as a federal audit uncovering a relatively unsophisticated revenue maximization scheme.  It goes like this:
Massachusetts takes the "reasonable cause" evidentiary standard and revs up the "when in doubt, report it" policy based on a scathing report from Children's Advocacy Institute and First Star, who later collaborate with the imperialistic morality parade called "Every Child Matters", who now seems to be operating as a Political Action Committee.

When mandatory reporting policy was expanded and reinforced there was a shift in funding streams.  Instead of home and community based services, programs and services were cut like family reunification; whereby, extending the length of stay in care and increasing recidivism rates.

“DCF prescribes powerful psychotropic drugs to foster kids while it has not even developed a system to monitor the medical records of children in state care,” said Lowry. “This is just one example of how a lack of oversight within the agency is endangering thousands of young lives while DCF management continues to defend its dysfunctional child welfare system.”  Allow me to take this one a step further.  Massachusetts does not even have a system to monitor its administrative costs in most of its Medicaid programs.  I believe I would be quite safe to wager that Massachusetts does not even have any internal controls for its child welfare contracts.

The five experts who conducted the studies have extensive backgrounds in their respective fields of child welfare policy, social work, organizational management and child and adolescent psychiatry. Their independent reports include:

  • DCF operations that finds structural deficiencies across many key areas. The report is authored by Cathy Crabtree, who served for eight years as Assistant Commissioner for the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services and two and a half years as Associate Commissioner for the Alabama Department of Mental Health.
  • A Review of Named Plaintiffs’ Case Files which studies five of the six named plaintiff children and finds that DCF fails to meet minimum practice standards. The report is authored by Lenette Azzi-Lessing,  Ph.D, a professor of social work at Wheelock College. Dr. Azzi-Lessing was a social work practitioner for nearly 30 years in Rhode Island.
  • DCF fails to adequately monitor the administration of powerful psychotropic medication to children entrusted to its care. It is authored by Christopher Bellonci, MD, a professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine and the senior psychiatric consultant at the Walker Home and School in Massachusetts.
  • A Safety Review of the  DCF safety net finding holes in the agency’s performance on special investigations, licensing, contract monitoring and related safety practices and authored by Arburta Jones, former Executive Director of the Division of Central Operations in the New Jersey Department of Children and Families from 2006 to 2008 and Chief of Staff of the New Jersey Office of the Child Advocate from 2003 to 2006.
  • DCF fails to meet legal, regulatory, and policy standards across a variety of case practice areas. The study is conducted by the Children’s Research Center, a non-profit social research organization and a division of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency.

Children’s Rights, with Boston law firm Nutter McClennen & Fish filed the lawsuit known as Connor B. v. Patrick in April 2010, charging  DCF with failing to meet constitutional requirements and its legal duty to ensure the safety and well-being of children in its custody by routinely placing them in dangerous and unstable situations once removed from their parents’ care.

The lawsuit asserts that children in Massachusetts suffer abuse in foster care and bounce from one foster home or institution to another at alarming rates. Also, a high percentage languish in foster care for years, and ultimately age out of the system without permanent families or the skills needed to live as independent adults. The lawsuit links these problems to DCF’s failure to effectively manage its workforce, resources, and practices.

On January 4, 2011, U.S. District Judge Michael A. Ponsor rejected Massachusetts officials’ efforts to block abused and neglected children’s access to federal court by denying a motion to dismiss the federal case. Less than two months later, the judge ruled that the lawsuit may proceed as a class action on behalf of the approximately 7,500 abused and neglected children in state custody. A trial is set for January 21, 2013.

The lawsuit filed in 2010 named six children as plaintiffs to represent the class who at the time ranged in ages from 9 to 15 years old and shared a history of harm in  DCF 
custody. They included:
  • Nine-year-old Connor who suffered sexual abuse as DCF shuffled him between seven different foster homes in three years. Connor struggles with severe mental, behavioral, and emotional challenges as a result.
  • Adam 15 years old, who was severely beaten in a residential treatment facility. DCF failed to provide him with a permanent family and gave him no preparation for living independently as an adult.
  • Camila R., 13 years old, who was separated from her two sisters and returned to her abusive mother, has lived in at least 11 different placements while in foster care. DCF denied her vital educational and mental health services.
  • Fifteen-year-old Andre who has been legally free for adoption for over 10 years and spent seven of 12 years in the state’s care in a residential facility rather than a foster placement or relative’s home.
  • Seth T. 13 years old, was bounced between five foster placements in his first sixteen months in foster care. DCF has effectively cut Seth’s ties with his family, arranged visits with his brothers only a few times a year and never properly explored the possibility of placing him with relatives.
  • Fifteen-year-old Rakeem  was not only immediately separated from his three siblings, but also denied the opportunity to live with relatives who may have been able to care for him. As DCF has moved Rakeem through at least eight different foster and group homes, his education and behavioral health has suffered.
More information about Children’s Rights’ campaign to reform the child welfare system in Massachusetts can be found at www.childrensrights.org/massachusetts/.
I am extremely disappointed with how Children's Rights is handling the Michigan case.  I know in the past I have highlighted how attorney fees are not directly benefiting the children who have been harmed, but now I sincerely hope they rake Massachusetts over the coals and make them a national example for failure to comply.



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Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Enderle: Help us take on Big Oil


Help us take on Big Oil.

Please help us spread the word and pass this on to as many people as you can. This is our first internet advertisement of the 2012 campaign cycle. We need your help to get this out to as many people as possible.
Please show this video to your friends, and if you can, please donate to the campaign so we can put this advertisement on television and radio. Enbridge lobbyist Bud Cramer donated $5,000 to Mike's campaign. Your donation of $5.00 or even $50.00 would go a long way to ensuring that Mike's political career ends early.


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The Epidemiology of Public Pensions

With many cities there are financial situations manifesting, dealing with legacy costs in pensions.  Many cities typically address the increase of health care costs with their retirees through investment strategies of the pension fund.  Some cities adopt administrative remedies of reviewing eligibility criteria to qualify for city benefits.  Not the City of Detroit, and neither Wayne County for that matter.

It seems the City of Detroit and Wayne County are now insisting that employees secure copy of their federal tax filings to cross reference with their benefits packages.  For some time these employees were listing anyone and everyone as qualified dependents for health care coverage, even extending to retirees as there was no administrative oversight in place.  What this means is these local governments have been providing unnecessary health care coverage for individuals who were never eligible as dependents.

There is an interesting piece of information that was delivered to me for my analysis.  It seems the City of Hamtramck is in the speculative process of changing the benefits of retired public safety members.  Of course, the unions will bring forth litigation because it is an interference of union collective bargaining contracts and the City is prepared to loose in court.  The City will appeal and loose, again.  By that time the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare) will have been fully implemented and cover any of the coverage the public safety retirees have lost, leaving the City in the clear to fill wholes in its budget.

In assessing this scenarios of a city benefiting in the short and long term from attacking collective bargaining, it seems to put into perspective the activities of many states of in dismantling collective bargaining powers of union contracts because in a few years, the federal government will pick up the unexpected burdens of legacy and health care costs.

Let's look at it this way.  So far the manufacturing unions have been faced with accepting cuts in benefits and so have local and state government employees.  The next in the chain of events seems to be the pensions and benefits of federal employees.

The pay and pensions of federal employees have just recently come up for examination.  For example, the Social Security Administration Commissioner Michael Astrue has put on the table early out deals for some 9,000 employees.  In light of the increase in disability claims and baby boomer applications for Social Security Benefits, it leaves the field office staff short handed.  As one field officer and union stewart told me last month,

"The Administration wants us to do $10,000 worth of work for $100 pay.  That is just not possible and alot of claims are going to be delayed.  Children (SSI cases) who are aging out, turning 18, automatically come up for review.  This means their determinations and payments will be delayed."

In the long run the Administration will be able to invest in streamlining its operations and save on legacy costs.

Congressional staffers can easily make more than a state governor or a mayor, making them uniquely prime to be political volunteer test subjects on how the nation will be moving forward in the rethinking of benefits and pensions.

The starting pay for a Detroit Police Officer is about $12.50 an hour and with a child or two, that officer now qualifies for Supplemental Food Benefits and subsidized daycare.  An FBI agent starts at about $60,000 a year with the cre'me de la cre'me benefits package.  So what makes a federal law enforcement officer so different from a municipal law enforcement officer?  Quite simple, the pension and benefit cut epidemic has yet to fully infect federal discussions.

Simply put, federal employees benefits and pensions are next up on the chopping block.

No matter how loud the opposition soap boxes its ad hominem arguments on the evils of Obamacare,   the Act is on its way to full 2015 implementation and will be the fodder for the epidemiology of pensions, with the help of those who want to get rid of collective bargaining.


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Sunday, August 19, 2012

Vista Maria Grows Its Own Human Crops

This is the intro to Vista Maria's girls foster care program:

 At Vista Maria, we serve over 1,000 children every year who have been abused, neglected and  traumatized.  They are confused, angry and scared.  Some are full of despair with little hope for a promising future.

This is what they forgot to include in its program description:

More than half our girls are pregnant.  Because we are not federally required to report nor maintain data on the number of girls each year who are raped or become pregnant in our foster care programs, we do not have to develop any maternal infant programs beyond taking the baby at birth and placing in foster care with the label of abuse and neglect.  

Due to the fact that we are a Catholic organization, we do not teach sex education nor do we condone the use of contraceptives.  These young girls become pregnant due to years of sexual abuse in foster care.  We offer no sexual abuse counseling and upon removal of the infant at birth, we have no intentions of immediate reunification as this is our way of accessing new funding, keeping our staff employed.  

This is the Catholic birth control hypocrisy of Michigan foster care.



I guess you could say Vista Maria is into in-house, green social harvesting.  It grows its own human crops.

Since Madame Corrigan, DHS Director, former State Supreme Court Chief Justice along with the current State Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Young have removed themselves from the Board of Vista Maria, I am quite sure they have not absolved themselves from the culpability of the treatment of these young girls.  Keep in mind, boys get raped in foster care, too.  Just ask Sr. Dorothy Doyle.

I dare anyone to ask Madame Corrigan to answer this question:  To whom do we report child abuse when the state is the abuser?  Make sure to have your cameras rolling, you do not want to miss her snotty dismissal of a serious issue.  And do not forget to send it to me.

Teen Pregnancy Among Young Women in Foster CareVoting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

Speaking Out: False Abuse and Neglect Report & CPS (Child Protective Services) Corruption

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Thursday, August 16, 2012

Cost to county of lying social workers: $10.6 million

Anyone up for Wayne County, Michigan?  I got all the state and county audits and investigative reports.

Cost to county of lying social workers: $10.6 million


The total cost to Orange County of a case in which a jury found that two social workers lied to take away a woman’s daughters is $10.6 million, according to a new audit.

Deanna Fogarty-Hardwick
The U.S. Supreme Court last year declined to hear the county’s challenge to a 2007 jury award of $4.9 million to the Seal Beach woman,Deanna Fogarty-Hardwick. With interest on that amount plus her attorney fees, the total payout by the county was $9.6 million. In addition, the county incurred another $1 million of its own legal costs in the case.
The figures come from a first-ever performance audit of the county’s risk-management operation, which process lawsuits and workers’ compensation claims against the county. The audit, performed by the county’s Office of the Performance Audit Director, comes before the Board of Supervisors at next Tuesday’s meeting.
The Fogarty-Hardwick case is the most expensive liability claim ever paid by the county and the only one to exceed the county’s $5 million self-insurance limit. It contributed to a precipitous increase in the county’s liability claims costs over the past couple of years, as payouts for personal damages leaped from $1 millionin fiscal 2009 to $14 million in fiscal 2011.
The cost of the Fogarty-Hardwick case grew in the four years after the initial $4.9 million in damages was awarded by an Orange County jury in 2007. Interest and attorney fees steadily accrued as the county pursued appeals all the way to the highest court in the land.
“It was pretty amazing — they succeed in taking a $5 million award and doubling it for us,” said Shawn McMillan, Fogarty-Hardwick’s attorney. “In my view, the taxpayers in Orange County should be pissed. This never should have gone this far.”
Throughout the case and afterward, the county’s Social Services Agencmaintained that its social workers did nothing wrong.
“I am certain and I stand by my social workers that they did not fabricate, they did not suppress any information and they did not perjure themselves,” said Dr. Michael Riley, the agency’s director, told the Watchdog last year. “If they had, I would have dismissed them.”
But ultimately it was the Board of Supervisors who decided to plow ahead with the appeals.
“We were in one of those situations where we say ‘Do we cut or we keep moving forward’ and we were being advised by our legal counsel to keep moving forward,” said supervisor John Moorlach. “You sit there and you say ‘Heck, this all doesn’t make sense.’ ”
“You have your department head trying to be as persuasive as possible, (saying) ‘This is not the character or quality of the work of these individuals, it’s being mischaracterized, we need you to support us,’ ” Moorlach added.

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Michele Bachmann Refuses To Speak Out On Violence In Foster Care Caucus

Michele Bachmannn speaks about Congressional Caucus on Foster Care.  What she does not speak upon are the suicides, rapes, drugs, Medicaid fraud, double-billing, fraudulently generated documents, wrongful and unnecessary removals, lost, forged and never maintained educational records, homelessness...I could go on and on but these are things you will never hear her speak upon.

Here is a link to her email: http://bachmann.house.gov/contact/zipcode.htm you could attempt to ask her why she will not address in public the horrors of child welfare but her congressional email is set up to filter.

You could try to email her campaign http://www.michelebachmann.com/ but you have to contribute, first.

If you try to write a letter to her congressional office, do not wait for a return communication.  She will never speak of the violence in foster care.  It's a secret.




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Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuettee Public Integrity Unit McCotter Petition Fraud Charges and Evidence of Possible Election Law Violations,

More to come... Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuettee Public Integrity Unit McCotter Petition Fraud Charges and Evidence...Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

Virginia AG Cuccinelli Recovers $2 Million In Child Welfare Medicaid Fraud


Over my 10 years of monitoring the States Attorney General and how they deal with Medicaid fraud in child welfare, I must announce that I found my second superstar of child welfare false claims prosecutions and recoveries of Medicaid fraud, The Commonwealth of Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli.  Roy Cooper will always be #1 in my book.

Which Attorney General wants to be number 3?  Any nominations?  Any predictions?

Mental health service provider pleads guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud

Virginia Attorney General
Ken Cuccinelli 
RICHMOND (August 13, 2012) - Today, a Richmond-based mental health service provider plead guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud for billing Medicaid for services that were not reimbursable because the services did not address a child's specific mental health issues, were not provided by qualified mental health workers, and were not provided to children who were in actual need of the offered service. Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Neil MacBride announced that Joseph T. Hackett, 31, of Asheville, N.C., plead guilty to one count of Conspiracy to Commit Health Care Fraud after the plea was accepted by United States District Judge Henry E. Hudson.

Hackett faces a maximum penalty of five years of imprisonment when he is sentenced on November 13, 2012.  He also agreed to pay $1,570,041 in restitution to the Virginia Department of Medical Assistance Services (DMAS), the state agency charged with overseeing the Medicaid program in Virginia.

Hackett admitted that he owned and operated Access Regional Taskforce (ART), a Richmond-based Medicaid contracted provider of intensive in-home therapy services for children and adolescents, one of the many mental health services offered by Medicaid in Virginia. Intensive in-home therapy services are designed to assist youth and adolescents who are at risk of being removed from their homes, or are being returned to their homes after removal, because of significant mental health, behavioral, or emotional issues.  Medicaid requires that intensive in-home therapy providers employ qualified metal health workers to provide a medically necessary service to at-risk children and adolescents.

Hackett, through ART, billed Medicaid for services that were not reimbursable because the services did not address a child's specific mental health issues, were not provided by qualified mental health workers, and were not provided to children who were in actual need of the offered service.  Hackett admitted that Medicaid paid ART at least $1,570,041 that ART was not entitled to receive.  In addition, Hackett paid Creed Xtreme Marketing Concepts, a.k.a. Creed Extreme Marketing, $545,410 for patient referrals.  The owner of Creed, Lorie T. Monroe, was sentenced to 37 months of imprisonment for receiving these referral payments.

The case was investigated by the Virginia attorney general's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  Virginia Assistant Attorney General and Special Assistant United States Attorney Joseph E.H. Atkinson and Assistant United States Attorney Jessica Aber Brumberg prosecuted the case on behalf of the United States.

Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia at http://www.vaed.uscourts.gov or on https://pcl.uscourts.gov


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Conyers Celebrates Historic First Day of Obama Deferred Action Policy, Urges Passage of DREAM Act as Permanent Solution




(DETROIT) – Today, Representative John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.), participated in a press conference applauding the Obama Administration’s bold policy to provide relief to young upstanding individuals who are American in every way but name. The press conference included Alliance for Immigrant Rights & Reform Michigan, local advocates, and three DREAMers intending to apply for deferred action under the new policy. Representative John Conyers, Jr. released this statement following the press conference:

“Two months ago, President Obama made a historic announcement that his administration would work to use executive discretion so that young people would receive temporary protection from deportation. Today, the Administration made good on its word,” said Conyers.

“I am pleased to announce that today is the first day that qualified young people will be able to request deferred action from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. This is an important day for countless young people who were brought to this country as children and have grown up knowing only America as their home. These are young people who have excelled in our schools, attended our churches and mosques, and played in our Little Leagues. They wish nothing more than to contribute to this country — the only one they have ever truly known.

“Until today, these young individuals lived in fear of deportation. Yet, under President Obama and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s leadership, these young people can now receive temporary protection from deportation.

“I want it to be clear that this policy only applies to a distinct group of young people who were brought to the United States as children, played by the rules, and can demonstrate that they meet key guidelines through documentation.

“I commend the Obama Administration for recognizing that executive discretion – which is used in so many other areas – is especially justified when we are faced with removing productive young people to countries where they may have never lived and where they may not even speak the language.

“I am personally committed to making this a successful program, and I want all young people who are eligible for deferred action to have access to the program. But that doesn’t mean Congress’s job is done.  The President has used his executive authority to set immigration priorities and offer temporary protection, but Congress must act to make this protection permanent by passing the DREAM Act into law.”

For additional helpful information on the steps needed to be taken for deferred action, please visit the Department of Homeland Security’s webpage at:

enforcement/deferred-action-
process-for-young-people-who-are-low-enforcement-priorities.shtm


Representative John Conyers, Jr. speaking at a Press Conference on Deferred Action for DREAMers.



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