Two Chicago Women Charged With $1.7 Million in Fraudulent WC Billing

Chicago, IL (WorkersCompensation.com) – Two Chicago-area women have pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit health care fraud. The Department Of Justice announced Friday that Ella Garner, 62 and Chante Carrothers, 40 will receive sentencing before Judge Bucklu; Corrothers in August and Garner in September.

As part of the plea bargain, both women admitted to fraudulently billing $1.7 million in workers’ compensation charges to the Federal office of Workers’ Compensation Programs OWCP from June 2010 to April 2018. The charges billed to the OWCP were for 24-7 care or “assistance in the home” services that Garner purportedly provided to a single patient in the person’s home. Carrothers allegedly billed the OWCP and then paid Garner $4,500 per month for her role in the scheme.

Carrothers was the owner of Caring Hearts Home Healthcare, according to case court records from 2018. Neither the patient, nor the attending orthopedic physician that treated the patient from 2010 to 2018 were identified in case records.

Under the Caring Hearts Healthcare, Carrothers and Garner conspired to obtain a physician’s recommendation for a home health aide for the patient involved, and then obtained authorization so that payment could be made, the court records said. Carrothers had responded to the OWCP falsely representing the patient’s condition and, thus, the need for payment.

Several departments were involved in the investigation, including the Postal and Labor Office of Inspector General, as well as the FBI. The Medicare Fraud Strike Force, created in 2007, is a collaborative group between the DOJ and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to investigate fraud in the healthcare system and enforce laws as a result. Since its creation in 2007, the entity has charged more than 4,000 defendants for a total of more than $14 billion fraudulently billed to Medicare

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