Vanessa Roberts Avery, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, and William Tong, Connecticut Attorney General, today announced that KELLY STUTZMAN (“Stutzman”), and her business, K-ASSIST, LLC (“K-Assist”), entered into a civil settlement agreement with the federal and state governments and paid more than $234,000 to resolve allegations that they violated the federal and state False Claims Acts.
K-Assist is a private behavioral health practice that provided in-home behavioral health services in the greater New Haven area. K-Assist is enrolled as a Behavioral Health Clinician Group and Stutzman is enrolled as a Professional Counselor in the Connecticut Medical Assistance Program (“CMAP”), which includes the state’s Medicaid program.
The Government alleged in its civil investigation that Stutzman and K-Assist submitted fraudulent claims to Medicaid for psychotherapy services. Stutzman and K-Assist falsely represented that a licensed provider had rendered the services when, in fact, an unlicensed individual rendered the services. To resolve the allegations under the federal and state False Claims Acts, Stutzman and K-Assist agreed to pay $234,064.89 in order to reimburse the Medicaid program for conduct occurring from February 1, 2018 through August 1, 2019.
Under the False Claims Act, the government can recover up to three times its actual damages, plus penalties of $13,085 to $27,018 for each false claim.
In a separate state criminal proceeding, Stutzman...
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