Two charged with defrauding Medicaid

A Columbia man and woman are accused of defrauding Medicaid by submitting time sheets for their home care attendant for hours that weren’t actually worked.

Vickie Heard, 60, and Gary Heard, 62, were arrested Monday on felony health care payment fraud charges filed in June. Each was released from the Boone County Jail on $1,500 bond.

The Heards filed the false time sheets with state’s Medicaid division, MO HealthNet, for work that was supposed to be performed between Nov. 21, 2016 and April 21, 2017, an investigator with the Missouri Attorney General’s Office wrote in a probable cause statement.

The Heards participated in a program that allows patients to hire a personal care attendant to provide services for them, and the patients are responsible for submitting time sheets to a Medicaid vendor. The Heards filed false claims through Integrity Home Care, which paid their attendant, Dana Tatham, via a paycard, the investigator wrote. Tatham then split the money received from the false hours with the Heards, according to the statement.

The investigator in the statement outlined times when Tatham was supposedly working for the Heards yet also attending other patients located hundreds of miles away. The investigator wrote that Medicaid lost nearly $7,700 from the fraud.

No hearings have been set in the Heards’ cases.