‘Ambulance service’ raked in $4.7 million for fake trips in North Carolina, feds say
When an ambulance transport company went bankrupt in North Carolina, two people started a new fake company to bill Medicare for ambulance trips that never happened, according to a federal indictment.
Over the course of about two years, federal investigators say, Devon Terrell Henderson and Pamela Dewitt Babb stole $4.7 million for pretend ambulance trips out of Pitt County.
The two took information from people signed up with Humana’s Medicare program from their earlier work doing wheelchair and ambulance transports, according to court filings. They stole the personal information to pass their bills off as real for the federal health care program, feds say.
Investigators say Henderson and Babb billed Medicare for ambulance trips that never happened over an 18-month span. The program’s administrator sent paper checks to pay for the fake services, which the two took to check-cashing services and split the proceeds, the feds say.
Medicare is a federal health insurance program for people over 65 years old and with disabilities.
The two billed Humana for a total of $6.1 million and actually got $4.7 million from the scheme between January 2014 and June 2016, according to court filings.
They also set up an account with Henderson’s real wheelchair transport company and had Humana pay that company for more fake ambulance rides, according to the indictment. That company, H&H Transport Services LLC, was based in Greenville.
The indictment was filed Monday in the U.S. District Court’s Eastern District of North Carolina, charging both with conspiracy to commit health care fraud and aggravated identity theft.
Federal court records did not list attorneys for Handerson or Babb.
This story was originally published August 27, 2019 at 11:47 AM.
