Drug clinic admits phony billing scheme, agrees to pay NYS $6 million
Bribed homeless people to enroll, used forged evaluations
New York Attorney General Letitia James on Monday announced an agreement with A.R.E.B.A.-CASRIEL, Inc. d/b/a/ Addiction Care Interventions Chemical Dependency Treatment (ACI) and its majority owner, Steven Yohay, regarding multiple schemes that defrauded the state Medicaid program, as part of a joint state-federal investigation.
Filed this past Friday in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, ACI and Yohay admitted that they failed to respond to reports of wrongdoing — which the investigation substantiated — that ACI engaged in multiple illegal schemes, including that its employees bribed homeless people into getting inpatient treatment there.
ACI admitted to many instances of fraudulent behavior, such as: paying an individual for a “no-show” job at ACI, while that person worked as a full-time employee at another organization with the same function as ACI; encouraging “outreach” drivers who regularly bribed potential Medicaid patients into seeking inpatient treatment at ACI, many of whom were experiencing homelessness at the time; and allowing Medicaid patients to enroll in its inpatient treatment program despite not being evaluated by a qualified health care professional.