Tina Lancaster of Boise was sentenced to 12 months and one day in federal prison for fraudulently billing Idaho’s Medicaid program more than $115,000.
Lancaster, also known as Tina Kondo-Broski, was the president of Idaho Children’s Academy and Therapy Center. She pled guilty to the fraud charge in May of this year. According to that agreement, she fraudulently billed Medicaid for services not provided by a licensed physical therapist or not authorized by a physician in 2005 and 2006.
“Medicaid fraud is a serious crime,” said U.S. Attorney Wendy Olson, whose office handled the case. “Today’s sentence sends a message to providers that taking taxpayers’ dollars will be punished with the loss of freedom and an order to pay the money back.”
The Idaho attorney general’s office has announced several similar Medicaid fraud convictions in the past few months. This case was handled by the U.S. attorney because the fraud was committed before Idaho’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit was created.
Medicaid provides insurance to 217,000 Idahoans who are children from low-income families, have a disability, are elderly, or are pregnant and low-income. The federal government pays for most Medicaid costs, but it also makes up the lion’s share of the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare budget.
Olson told IdahoReporter.com that her office works with state attorneys to handle Medicaid fraud. “We will both continue to pursue and aggressively prosecute health care fraud cases,” she said. Federal investigators also handle fraud cases involving Medicare, which is fully funded by the federal government, and third-party payers.
“There are not many lawyers and not many health care fraud investigators in the state so we want to make sure that we maximize the prosecuting resources,” Olson said.