I'm a nurse supervisor for a pediatric home health agency. We just fired and reported a nurse for the following: (this will blow your mind!)
1. She has worked with Pt. A for 5 yrs and attends school with her...every summer the mom would tell her she doesn't need to work but she can write up her daily notes and she would sign them. Basically she was clocking 30 hrs a week for the entire summer (and holidays) but wasn't working at all! She did this for 5 summers.
2. Pt. B...the mother let her come pick up the child and watch her at her own house. On one occasion she left the sleeping child alone so she could run to the corner store. She also allegedly stole various household items such as candles, pic frames, ate her food, and stole items the mom sells on an online boutique.
I have known of several, yes, several, nurses who document hours worked when they were nowhere near the client's home. On more than one occasion, I have been approached by client family members to engage in this type of fraud. Whenever I get told to go home early "go ahead and put your usual time", I lose wages because I insist on being honest. Every time the subject comes up, I reteach the family member about fraud. They insist that the other nurse does it and does not get in trouble, etc. etc. I am certain that the last time I left a case was because the mother was insisting on the fraud and a new weekend nurse was only too happy to oblige her, with my weekday hours as her reward.
What is truly disgusting is the lack of action on the part of the agencies when the fraud is reported. The agency terminates the person doing the reporting while allowing the people committing the fraud to continue with a pat on the back.
Your situation is only the second, among many instances, that I know of, where the agency has taken action against the fraud.
If you report it, you might get a reward.
These folks are committing grand larceny, defrauding Fed gov, something like that. I believe there are rewards for whistleblowers. That would include the clients facilitating this.
I couldn't call the Medicare compliance number quickly enough. This is fraud, not even subtle fraud. I'm also not usually quick to report other nurses but his has to be reported to the state BON.
Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
If you report it, you might get a reward.
These folks are committing grand larceny, defrauding Fed gov, something like that. I believe there are rewards for whistleblowers. That would include the clients facilitating this.
Absolutely. The client should be reported, too. I know from personal experience the client can be cut off and required to pay the money back. The person who was involved was a vent/trach patient.
Sounds like fraud on the nurses part and the mothers part with patient A. The state/federal agency paying the bills for this patient needs to be notified otherwise you could be considered part of it. If you do not report this there could be negative outcomes for your agency since they sent in the paperwork to be paid. Your agency made money during the times that the nurse was not working. If you do not turn this in and some how either your bosses find out from the community or if Medicare/Medicaid administrations start an investigation your job will be in jeopardy, which it could already if you are the one who signed the nurses time sheets. The agency (your bosses) are going to do its best to protect there self interest.
Specializes in Med nurse in med-surg., float, HH, and PDN.
Sounds like fraud on the nurses part and the mothers part with patient A. The state/federal agency paying the bills for this patient needs to be notified otherwise you could be considered part of it. If you do not report this there could be negative outcomes for your agency since they sent in the paperwork to be paid. Your agency made money during the times that the nurse was not working. If you do not turn this in and some how either your bosses find out from the community or if Medicare/Medicaid administrations start an investigation your job will be in jeopardy, which it could already if you are the one who signed the nurses time sheets. The agency (your bosses) are going to do its best to protect there self interest.
YIKES! Blow the whistle quickly!
I'll be looking for the story to break in the news.
You are all wrong in here. I have with another honest nurses reported a nurse who slept and was out of state and was charging medicaid money for 7 years 24 hours a day, stole a lots of millions. She have bought 7 homes...And guess what..... She went to trial after 4 years of investigation and needs to pay back 100 grand, 3 years of probation and that is all. No jail time, no nada........
You are all wrong in here. I have with another honest nurses reported a nurse who slept and was out of state and was charging medicaid money for 7 years 24 hours a day, stole a lots of millions. She have bought 7 homes...And guess what..... She went to trial after 4 years of investigation and needs to pay back 100 grand, 3 years of probation and that is all. No jail time, no nada........
Medicaid is state funded so while one state may not have a big penalty, another state could impose sentencing on the nurse and parent that could be rather ugly. The nurse's BON will likely do something with her license and if not, the state could impose restrictions that could make it nearly impossible to work.
I'm not quit sure how the person you say got no punishment was billing Medicaid for 7 years for 24 hours a day. Was this nurse VanWinkle who was supposed to never sleep for the 7 years? I'm also trying to figure out how this nurse in 7 years time would have been paid "lots of millions." I've worked for quite some time and haven't made that much. Maybe I'm missing something.
This makes me really sad. That nurse seems to have benefited from her dishonesty. The penalty was a slap on the wrist compared to her theft. She got away with it.
I'm less interested in "Can you do it" than "Should you do it." Ours is supposed to be an ethical profession. The public trusts us. I guess I just assumed that the dishonest nurses were weeded out during nursing school. It saddens me to hear about a fellow nurse who would do something so dishonest.
You are all wrong in here. I have with another honest nurses reported a nurse who slept and was out of state and was charging medicaid money for 7 years 24 hours a day, stole a lots of millions. She have bought 7 homes...And guess what..... She went to trial after 4 years of investigation and needs to pay back 100 grand, 3 years of probation and that is all. No jail time, no nada........
Specializes in Cardio-Pulmonary; Med-Surg; Private Duty.
I'm a nurse supervisor for a pediatric home health agency. We just fired and reported a nurse for the following: (this will blow your mind!)
1. She has worked with Pt. A for 5 yrs and attends school with her...every summer the mom would tell her she doesn't need to work but she can write up her daily notes and she would sign them. Basically she was clocking 30 hrs a week for the entire summer (and holidays) but wasn't working at all! She did this for 5 summers.
2. Pt. B...the mother let her come pick up the child and watch her at her own house. On one occasion she left the sleeping child alone so she could run to the corner store. She also allegedly stole various household items such as candles, pic frames, ate her food, and stole items the mom sells on an online boutique.
There's no telling what else she's done. WOW!
Holy crap!
I worked for a longtime client three nights this week in a hotel so he could attend a school function that was held in another town (still in our home state, so there were no issues w/ out-of-state license or using Medicaid funds in a different state).
This meant that he was in a queen-sized hotel bed rather than his normal twin-sized hospital bed (oh, my back!!!!). This also meant that I had to crawl on top of the bed in order to do PROM to his limbs on one side, connect the CPT vest, etc.
OMG, IT FELT SOOOOOOOOO WRONG to climb into (on top of) a bed with my patient! I felt totally skeeved out by how inappropriate it felt to be "in bed" with the patient like that -- I can't even begin to imagine taking a client to my home to provide care there, let alone all this other crap that's been mentioned!!!!
Kooky Korky, BSN, RN
5,216 Posts
If you report it, you might get a reward.
These folks are committing grand larceny, defrauding Fed gov, something like that. I believe there are rewards for whistleblowers. That would include the clients facilitating this.