Therapist admits Medicaid fraud

BY ROBERT L. BAKER

Wyoming County Press Examiner

A 39-year-old man from Clarks Summit could face up to 21 years in state prison and $45,000 in fines after pleading guilty Friday in Wyoming County Court to Medicaid fraud, theft by deception and tampering with records.

Phillip J. Kuna, who had been employed as a mobile therapist providing psychotherapy services to the Children’s Service Center in Tunkhannock from Aug. 18, 2014, to Jan. 14, 2016, appeared before President Judge Russell Shurtleff.

According to court records, Kuna was terminated by the Children’s Service Center in 2016 after it had learned that he was not meeting with all clients on a regular basis.

An internal review of his time with the agency revealed numerous discrepancies on encounter forms, and the matter was turned over to the state attorney general’s office for further review.

Their investigation focused on his alleged work with nine students at Mehoopany Elementary School in Wyoming County and six children at Elk Lake Elementary School in Susquehanna County.

Parents of two of the nine Mehoopany students indicated they did not even know Kuna, and when the AG’s office showed them encounter forms, those parents told investigators that their signatures had been forged.

Court records show that the AG’s office visited both elementary schools – which had strict sign-in policies for visitors – and there were approximately 100 times Kuna submitted encounter forms for services rendered at the schools when he did not sign the visitors’ logs.

In fact, there were four instances at Mehoopany and two at Elk Lake for which encounter forms were submitted when the student was absent from school.

Janice Martino-Gottshall of the attorney general’s office who prosecuted the case Friday said that Kuna had been compensated for hundreds of hours of work not performed, and that restitution derived from fraudulent encounter forms totaled $19,012, a sum that Kuna and his attorney Joseph Toczydlowski stipulated as probably being correct and having been billed to the Community Care Behavioral Health Organization, a managed care group.

The funds were covered through Medicaid’s Medical Assistance program.

During testimony Friday prior to signing his guilty plea, Kuna acknowledged to the judge that he was not currently employed.

Judge Shurtleff said Kuna would be sentenced at a later date.