The owner of two Houston healthcare companies has pled guilty in connection with schemes to defraud Medicare of $6.3 million, according to the Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services.
Princewill Njoku, 51, pled guilty before U.S. District Court Judge Gray Miller in Houston to a charge of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud. In his plea, Njoku admitted that he defrauded Medicare of $6.3 million.
According to investigators, Njoku owned Family Healthcare Services, which maintained a valid Medicare provider number in order to submit Medicare claims for durable medical equipment and supposedly provided orthotics and other equipment to Medicare beneficiaries. Investigators said Njoku and co-defendant Clifford Ubani hired others to recruit Medicare beneficiaries for the purpose of filing claims with Medicare for unnecessary DME.
Njoku also owned and operated Family Healthcare Group, a home healthcare company, which provided skilled nursing to Medicare beneficiaries. Investigators said Njoku hired people to recruit Medicare beneficiaries for the purposes of filing claims with Medicare for skilled nursing, and that Family Group then used the Medicare beneficiary numbers to submit claims to Medicare for skilled nursing that was medically unnecessary and/or not provided.
Njoku admitted to paying kickbacks to recruiters for their referrals. In total, Family Group was paid approximately $5.2 million by Medicare for fraudulent claims and Family Services submitted approximately $1.1 million in fraudulent claims.
Njoku faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. Ubani, a co-owner of Family Services and Family Group, pled guilty on Sept. 29 to conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud. Both are scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 25, 2011.
The case was brought as part of the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, supervised by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Texas and the Criminal Division's Fraud Section.
Since inception in March 2007, Medicare Fraud Strike Force operations in seven districts have obtained indictments of more than 810 individuals who collectively have falsely billed the Medicare program for more than $1.85 billion.