JACKSON, Tenn. — A mother in Jackson, Tennessee and four nurses were arrested and charged with conspiring to commit health care fraud.
According to the Jackson Sun, Josephine Coach’s son, who is now deceased, had a tracheotomy and needed a ventilator to breath.
The child also was confined to a wheelchair and needed constant care for a gastrointestinal problem he had.
To help care for the boy, four nurses, Falesha Wilson, Carla Surratt, Nakesha Stephens and Nicole Douglass, were contracted with TennCare to provide at least 19 hours of daily nursing care.
However, court documents showed from January 2009 to August 2011, those nurses didn’t work those hours.
The court alleged Coach made an agreement with the nurses in which they didn’t have to show up for their shifts if they continued to bill TennCare.
They would then split the money with her.
As a result, TennCare paid out more than $400,000 for nursing services the child never received.
“The defendants’ scheme of foregoing the medical needs of a severely disabled minor in exchange for financial gain at taxpayer expense is shocking and reprehensible,” said U.S. Attorney Edward L. Stanton III. “Each defendant, including the minor’s mother, will now be held accountable at sentencing.”
Each of the defendants face up to five years behind bars and a $250,000 fine.
They are set to be in court in October.
Coach’s son died in April 2015 at the age of 12.
