NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — A woman from Norfolk has been sentenced to more than a year in prison for creating a health care scheme that caused Medicaid to lose about $863,000.
Sandy Annette Varzmanesh, (aka Sandy Vincent), 54, owned and operated P&S Home Health Care Solutions in Portsmouth, which was authorized to provide home health care services for people who were part of the Virginia Medical Assistance Program (Medicaid).
Registered nurses need to make determinations for each recipient of the program’s services, but Varzmanesh did not have them do the assessments. Instead, she “provided Medicaid numerous fraudulent assessments that were never done by an RN and had the forged signature of an RN who never worked for Varzmanesh,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
She also billed thousands of dollars to Medicaid for services their either didn’t happen or for which the recipient didn’t qualify for.
“Varzmanesh lied to, cheated, and stole from taxpayers and healthcare providers,” said G. Zachary Terwilliger, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. “When someone commits healthcare fraud, it drives up the cost of care for everyone and creates an unfair playing field. Sandy Varzmanesh falsified records that put Medicaid recipients at risk, and lied about providing care in order to steal taxpayer money. I want to thank our team, the FBI, and the Virginia Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit for their terrific work on this complex and important case.”
